The Effect of Diaspora
by ReaderMike
Summary: In 2157 PD, A Turian patrol attacked a newly discovered race for attempting to activate a prime relay. Unfortunately, the race in question had been in space nearly as long as the Asari have. Unlike the Asari, this wasn't a race of diplomats. This race had a fleet far more vast than the combined citadel races, and the Turians managed to piss them off. Eventual Slash.
1. Prologue

**The Effect of Diaspora**

**Disclaimer: I do not own either the Mass Effect universe or Honorverse, and therefore am stating that I am only playing in these realms. Any original characters however, are my own.**

**So this is the fic that's been on my mind for the last two weeks, and I had no choice but to write it up. I have as much as ten or so chapters of pre-Mass effect history plotted out. After that, I don't know how much more I'll be doing, if I'll stop at Mass Effect I, or continue all the way through Mass Effect 3.**

**-TED-**

**Prologue:Diaspora**

Admiral Williams sat back as he looked across the vast expanse of space. It had been a long time since the last great interstellar war, and definitely nothing like the Great War that had been fought not even two centuries ago.

It was sad that so many of the old veterans were passing away now. Even Fleet Admiral Faith Harrington had retired, but then again the stubborn old battleaxe was closing in on her two hundred and fiftieth birthday. Still it was sad to know that in his lifetime all the greatest war heroes the Grand Alliance had ever known were going to pass away. Being a recipient of fourth generation prolong allowed him to live up to four hundred years, whereas most of the heroes of the Great War were first through third generation recipients, whose average lifetimes topped at about three hundred years, unless you were a Mesan Alpha line. Figures like Rafe Cardones, Shannon Foraker, and even the esteemed Protector Bernard Raoul Mayhew were beginning to reach the final stages of their lives.

Shaking his head of those depressing thoughts, Admiral Williams looked at the beautiful world before him. It was a new system, fairly recently colonized. The system of Shanxi.

The Shanxi system was just the beginning of a series of new colonization ventures started by the Kingdom of Torch. The mass migrations were proved possible thanks to the discovery of the Darius-Mannerheim-Congo-Shanxi-Discovery hyperspace bridge, the longest hyperspace bridge discovered so far. The influx of wealth that the kingdom saw after the discovery enabled it to finally have a decent naval presence.

Admiral Williams frowned as he remembered what was probably the worst day of Torch's history, the battle whose losses were worse than the Yawata Strike. Because of Torch's youth as a star nation, it had to resort to being protected by the Republic of Haven and the Star Empire of Manticore and their assorted allies, of course with the formation of the Grand Alliance both star nations were able to defend Torch more freely. Unfortunately, the collapse of the Solarian League following the attempted assault on Earth's eldest daughter world Beowulf had caused Torch's position in the Maya sector to become perilous.

It all came to a head in 1928 PD when a large fleet launched by the Mesan Alignment attempted to acquire the Congo system for its uses once more. Unfortunately, the system of Congo was home to the Kingdom of Torch, a kingdom born kicking and screaming during a mass slave uprising. When forced to choose between a return to slavery or death, the Torch Royal Navy chose death. The first stages of the battle lasted an entire day, the Torch Navy had been greatly outmatched, but Thandi Palane, the Great Kahja, proved her tactical skill in keeping Torch's Navy alive long enough for reinforcements from the Grand Alliance to arrive. Unfortunately, The Mesan Alignment proved its indifference to the Eridani Edict when it bombed the planet Torch resulting in almost ten million civilian casualties. If not for the brave actions of Lara's Own Regiment, Her Mousety Queen Berry I of House Zilwicki would have also perished during the bombing.

Sadly, the cost of retaking Torch's sovereign space came at the cost of close to 3 million service personnel, and the life of Duchess and Steadholder Honor Alexander-Harrington, the Fleet Admiral of the Grand Alliance. The resulting counter attack on Mannerheim and the discovery of Darius claimed the lives of both Victor Cachat and Admiral Alfredo Yu. Luckily, the invasion of Darius managed to deal a massive blow to the Mesan Alignment, but it still took another twenty years before the Mesan Alignment finally admitted defeat. Twenty years of suicide attacks, assassination attempts, violations of the Eridani edict, and all manner of unpleasantness. But the sacrifices of those days were not in vain, for Torch was able to celebrate its two hundred thirty eighth Terran birthday this year.

Furthermore, Torch was no longer a single system star nation. The genetic slaves of Darius had voted to join the Kingdom of Torch, and it took nearly a century after Torch's occupation of Mannerheim for that system to do the same. With the discovery of how long the hyper space bridge was, Torch managed to acquire both the Shanxi System, and the Discovery system. It also allowed the Grand Alliance colonization rights to the surrounding virgin star systems, even the Andermani Empire was more than willing to pay the tariffs required to utilize Torch's termini, especially now that the Empire had a vested interest in several colonies, not as many as Grayson, Manticore, or Haven, but enough of an interest to have trade flowing through Torch's termini.

Yet even that was not the cause of Admiral Williams' presence in the Shanxi system. For the major buzz in the system came not from the hyper bridge, but what a merchant man had found after it had suffered damage from a grav-wave thirty years ago, and what it found was a pair of alien artifacts. Artifacts with similar energy readings like what had been found on Mars, before the facility had been destroyed during Earth's Final War. When the information had disseminated enough, a similar power signature had been discovered in the Sol system buried within Pluto's moon.

With Old Terra's resources poured into analyzing the artifact, something that Shanxi hadn't had the support structure for, they discovered that these Mass Relays were actually artificial wormhole termini which could connect to the other relays and create temporary wormholes. What was the most fascinating aspect of it was the fact that in order to get past the mass limit all natural wormholes had, the Relays actually utilized some sort of field, a sort of strange inertial compensator that literally made a vessel mass-less, easily allowing hundreds of ships to mass transit quite easily.

Unfortunately, the primary component required to create the inertial compensator, what some scientists had named a mass effect field, was an element without a weight dubbed element zero. Not the most original of names Admiral Williams had to admit. While the Terran League, the successor of the now defunct Solarian League, knew what sort of element was required to create a mass effect field, the design to actually utilize the element continued to elude them. The same could be said for the Grand Alliance, but transit could be made without it and passengers could just suck up the nausea like they did when they accelerated or decelerated from hyperspace. That information was discovered eight years ago when John Grissom and his science team came too close to the relay and activated it thereby discovering the relay hub in the Arcturus system. Still, the fact that these Mass Relays could connect to other Relays within their range made them invaluable for both commerce and military operations.

After all, the Charon relay had a range of only a hundred or so light years, and so did many of the Arcturus hub relays, but that was not the case for all of them. The one relay that didn't quite work, seemed to connect directly to the relays near Shanxi. Unfortunately, it seemed that while hyper-capable vessels could utilize the secondary relays, the primary one, like the Arcturus-Shanxi connection, needed the eezo compensator. This could be on the account that the prime relays were actually real wormhole termini that had been modified in order to remove their mass limit, but because of the technology involved, it also barred usage of any vessel that didn't utilize a mass effect field.

Of course, that wasn't to say that a vessel couldn't use the prime relays at all. They could, it was just that the crew had the tendency to turn into goo due to the stresses involved, but that was going to change. A Terran League-Grand Alliance project had just unveiled the first mass effect capable vessel, a new engine type that would revolutionize inertial compensator technology, and would be making the attempt to activate the Arcturus-Shanxi mass relay junction. If it worked, Shanxi would become the crown jewel of the Kingdom of Torch, if it failed than billions of credits would be wasted. Admiral Williams dearly wished that he could be there to see the historical event, but his duties at Shanxi prevented that. He would just have to sit back and envy Hannah Shepard's luck at having her squadron posted there.

He frowned slightly even as he decided to turn back to his desk and the paperwork that awaited him. All his musings weren't going to get them done, and he needed to finish them now if he wanted to travel planet side to get home in time for dinner.

**-TED-**

Codex Entry:

**Andermani Empire: **A multi-system star empire founded by Gustav Anderman. While nowhere near as powerful or technologically advanced as the Grand Alliance, the Andermani Empire is not a star nation to be trifled with. While a close ally of the Grand Alliance, the Empire decided to forego joining so that they could at times work as the Grand Alliance's enforcers should the Alliance's fleets be tied up in conflict. Their information network is quite extensive and seems to rival that of the Salarian's STG detachments.

**Grand Alliance**: A multi-star nation defense force created in the early 20th century PD in order to combat the aggressive and illegal actions of the Solarian League military. The alliance was also formed in order to later combat the threat of the Mesan Alignment and their allies, who were using the Solarian League as their patsy in an attempt to destroy the two most prominent members of the alliance: The Star Empire of Maticore, and the Republic of Haven. The Alliance is now one of the three major factions of humanity, with amicable ties to both the Terran League and the Andermani Empire.

**Hyper-space bridge**: A series of wormholes that allow instantaneous transmit between star systems across vast distances in rapid sequence. What could take years of travel could in fact only take several weeks.

**Kingdom of Torch: **The planet formerly known as Verdant Vista was once under the control of the Mesan Alignment. Fortunately, the genetic slaves forced to harvest medicinal plants in a highly hostile world revolted against their masters. The blood bath only ended due to the plea of the then at the time nineteen year old Berry Zilwicki. In the aftermath, Berry Zilwicki was near unanimously voted in as the Queen of Torch and founder of House Zilwicki, thus creating the Kingdom of Torch, a save heaven for escaped genetic slaves.

**Lara's Own Regiment**: Named after the first bodyguard that had died in defense of Queen Berry I of the house of Zilwicki, Lara's Own Regiment is the premier of the Kingdom of Torch's military ground forces. Considering their roots, Lara's Own Regiment also boasts the most physically powerful members of Torch's population. The entire regiment is made up of former genetic slaves, supersoldiers, highly trained spec ops forces, terrorists, assassins, and their offspring. Like most of Torch's population, their devotion to, and defense of, the Crown of Torch borders on zealotry.

**Mesan Alignment**: An organization started by the Detweiler family whose goals included determining the genetic future and supremacy of mankind through genetic manipulation. The Alignment utilized as Caste system that started with Alpha lines, the lines with the most genetic modification, all the way down to slaves genetically grown to serve their masters.

**Terran League:** Born from the disintegrating Solarian League, the Terran League is made up of Old Terra and her innermost daughter worlds. While nowhere near as powerful as the now defunct Solarian League, the Terran League is still an industrial juggernaut. The current population of the League stands at around a trillion people, roughly a third of what the Solarian League was once reported to having.

**-TED-**

**Well there you have it, the prologue to my Mass Effect/Honorverse fanfic. As some of you can see, there will be very few Honorverse characters seen in the fic due to their advanced ages..or deaths. I know I might upset Honorverse fans by killing Honor already, but well Weber has stated that he plans to kill her, I just did so in a way that was in accordance to how he wanted her to die.**

**Please leave me reviews, I want to know what you guys think. Also, expect slow updates.  
**


	2. First Contact

**Disclaimer: I do not own Mass Effect nor Honorverse. I am merely throwing the two worlds together. Any original characters, however, are mine.**

**Okay so I've just managed to embarrass myself. I didn't realize that I titled the entire story The Effect of Diaspora Prologue. That was the title of the document I uploaded . Well I fixed it.**

**TNS vs TLS**

**Okay in this chapter you'll be seeing TNS vessels and TLS vessels. TNS ships are from the Royal Torch Navy, TLS are from the Terran League Navy. **

**Also, I've played ME2 and ME3 since I have a PS3, but I have not played ME…so yeah if I cut out a bunch of things from ME that's probably the reason why.**

**No beta so forgive errors**

**-TED-**

**Chapter 1: First Contact**

Shala'Raan vas _Tonbay_ hadn't known what she had been expecting. True the Patrol Fleet scouts had discovered a newly opened secondary relay, but those relays opened up all the time. She and the rest of the Migrant Fleet were preparing to enter a resource heavy planetary system, one that was uninhabited but Feda'Gazu vas_ Idenna's_ report of unfamiliar dreadnoughts in the system worried her.

True the Heavy Fleet could probably take them on, but there would be heavy casualties, and casualties were something that the Migrant Fleet could not have. Yet the reason why those vessels were in the system puzzled her. According to Feda'Gazu the ships were clustered around the prime relay, yet they were not activating it. In fact, the dreadnoughts didn't even produce a mass effect field.

First contact with a new race might prove to be a boon for the Migrant Fleet. If they could set up trade relations before these people could be colored against the Quarian people, then perhaps they'd find a valuable ally, something the Migrant fleet sorely lacked. Thus the reason why Shala'Raan was sitting amongst the Admirality Board as the Conclave debated.

"Admirals, what do we know about this new species?" Vari'Paniful vas _Iktomi_ asked looking directly at Admiral Rael'Zorah vas _Alarei_.

"From what Ysin'Mal vas _Idenna_ has reported, this new species does not appear to have Mass Effect technology, but their propulsion systems are quite advanced. They utilize some sort of high stressed gravity band in order to move their ships. His scout ship the _Cyniad_ could not get close enough to gather further information on the vessels. Even so, there are reports of civilian traffic in the area, and their civilian ships seem to be built on an even more massive scale than their warships," he said sitting back.

That caused a stir within the Conclave. The members were excited to hear that the civilian ships were more massive than the warships. Perhaps opening up a dialogue with these species would allow them to purchase a few of them, allowing the Migrant Fleet to lessen the strain on the Liveships. But there was a downside, this species didn't have mass effect technology.

"Should we report our findings to the Citadel?" A conclave member asked. There was a possibility that the Migrant Fleet might be punished for not spreading information about this new race to the rest of the galaxy at large, but then again what had the Citadel races done for them?

Admiral Zaal'Koris vas _Qwib Qwib_ rubbed the chin of his suit in thought for a moment. "What we could do is send a delegation to meet with this race, and at the same time send a ship through the relay to contact a Turian patrol. Shala'Raan do you happen to have the coordinates of the last Turian patrol we encountered?"

Shala'Raan bit her lip, not that anyone could see it of course, as she thought back. The encounter with the Turian patrol had almost caused an incident thanks to Admiral Han'Gerrel vas _Neema's_ actions. Still, it was a good thing she had kept at least a scout vessel in the system to keep an eye on them; a precaution to ensure the Turians didn't decide to take a few potshots at the Migrant Fleet. "The _Sayya_ should be heading to the rendezvous coordinates soon. If we send a scout ship now, the _Sayya_ should be able to link with the Turian patrol in a few hours."

"Then that is what I propose us do. We'll send two ships, one to make contact with these aliens and one to inform the Council," Zaal'Koris said. He could tell that Han'Gerrel didn't seem happy, but Rael'Zorah was definitely keeping him in check. He wanted these people to open up trade with the Migrant Fleet, get them new ships, maybe if they were lucky even help them settle a new planet. He knew Rael'Zorah and Han'Gerrel saw it differently, that they wished to form a military alliance with these newcomers and use their aid to take back Rannoch.

"I am not comfortable sending a ship to these aliens," Shala'Raan said eventually, causing a murmur in the Conclave. "I know we are in approval of contact, but we do not know enough. Perhaps if the vessel we send is one of the smaller ones…or a scout ship crewed by volunteers?" she suggested. It was a foregone conclusion that they were going to make contact, but doing so safely was more important than anything else. The Migrant Fleet could ill afford to lose even one ship, and yet finding a new ally seemed definitely worth the risk.

**-TED-**

It was a very exciting time to be alive. Hannah Shepard knew that much as she looked around at the wide eyed crew around her. Captain Shepard was the CO of the _TNS Shilo, _commodore Hackett's flagship. To be honest her squadron was nothing more than a glorified picket force consisting of a three heavy cruisers, two light cruisers, four destroyers, and eight frigates. True four of the eight frigates were spider-drive vessels, and thus vastly different in function than their impeller drive sisters, yet the mission they were given, while important, was tediously boring. Their mission was simple, they were to provide escort for the three survey ships that were studying the prime relay, and serve as the honor guard for _TLN Prometheus_-the prototype survey ship with a dark energy core that would activate the relay-or end up reporting the _Prometheus_' destruction, but that was not the cause of the excitement that threatened to consume her squadron.

An alien vessel had been detected scouting their fleet. This vessel had been caught by _TNS Philippi _during a routine patrol of the outer system. The small spider-drive frigate's stealth technology was the only reason she'd been able to detect the scout, and the mothership from which it had come. Wisely, Hackett had ordered the squadron to adopt a wait and see approach. It was unknown whether these aliens were friendly or not. Regardless, it was an exciting time because sooner or later mankind would be making its thirteenth first contact with a sentient race, and the first contact with a space faring one.

"Skipper! We've got a contact heading in on the elliptical," Jason Cruz exclaimed. The young astrogator was fairly large, reflecting his San Martin heritage. Born on one of the heaviest gravity worlds known to man, San Martinos tended to be large and had very dense skeletons and muscles, making them some of the most physically powerful members of the human race. He was one of several officers who were serving in Torch's navy at the behest of the Grand Alliance. "Vessel is on intercept course with us ma'am, bearing zero niner seven. I'm reading dark energy and fusion torch emissions."

"Is it the same contact as before?" Hannah asked sitting up in her chair, looking over the readouts almost excitedly. She could barely restrain herself. Here she was, a mere captain, on the verge of the first contact with a space faring race.

"Aye Ma'am, it's the mothership. _TNS Philippi _just confirmed an energy profile match," Henry Benton, Hannah's diminutive com officer replied.

"Ma'am CIC makes its energy signatures about the equivalent of a destroyer," Alex X, great grandson of the infamous Jeremy X said from his readout over at tactical.

"Right, let's com Maria Mancini's science team and somebody wake up the commodore, I don't think he is going to want to miss this. But to be on the cautious side, let's sound GQ and generate an intercept vector. We don't know if these guys are friendly yet," she said grinning. Oh it paid to wake up an hour or so before the commodore, and she knew she was going to have a hard time resisting shoving this in his face sometime later. How he'd regret not being on his flag deck when the aliens came back.

**-TED-**

This was stupid, this was beyond stupid, and she was going to say so at the next conclave meeting. Shala'Raan was not a happy woman, not at all, but it was her duty as an admiral of the Migrant Fleet to complete this mission, especially since the others were not capable of doing it. The debate on who to send to represent the Quarian people had gotten ugly very quickly, it had been a toss up between Rael'Zorah and Zaal'Koris. The two ideologies clashing again and again, if the _Idenna_ hadn't offered itself to be sent back to the system she didn't know how long the debate would have taken. But when she expressed her worries about how first contact should be made, the conclave seemed to align to make her the one to make it, since she at least would be cautious about the whole thing.

"Admiral! Energy signatures on the lead dreadnought are rising! It's on an intercept course," Ysin'Mal's voice called to her from the far side of the room. Shala shifted in her seat, which was normally set aside for Ysin'Mal but the man had been adamant that the admiral had to sit in the captain's chair.

"They must have seen our approach," Shala mused, but how? Could it be those odd gravity impulses they'd been detecting had actually been some sort of sensor probe? "Communications, prepare the first contact package for transmission."

**-TED-**

"Ma'am we're receiving a data package," Sharon D, formerly D-42A/213-4/4, stated from her seat at communications.

"Very good Ms. D, I'll inform commodore Hacket," she said as she went to screen the man's flag bridge.

**-TED-**

"We've got the transmission Hannah, good work," Commodore Steven Hackett of the Torch Royal Navy stated as he looked over the read out. "What can you make of this Mrs. Mancini?" he asked.

Maria Mancini was Erewhonese; even so, she strangely came of oriental stock by way of her Beowulfan mother. The blend of Erewhonesian blood and Beowulfan gave the average sized woman a very attractive figure. Currently the dark haired woman was pouring over the screens of Hackett's com officer as she looked over the files. She'd been brought aboard immediately after the first sighting due to her expertise in xenolinguistics. "I can't be completely sure, but I think that they are sending us prime numbers first…and this seems to be some sort of alphabet. I seriously hope that they have some sort of translation device, because I'd need a full team to decipher anything more elaborate than this."

"Right what do you recommend we reply with?" he asked as he looked at her.

"I would suggest a video recording. Start off simple, count to ten on your fingers, say a greeting, your name and rank. We have to get them a sample of our language, without it communication is going to be extremely difficult. If we have to, we can resort to sending mathematical equations to each other and build up off of there."

**-TED-**

"They've sent a video response."

"Put it up, and pull it through our translators," Shala said as she looked at the video of the strange humanoid in front of her. It had blue eyes and a fair complexion, something similar to Asari or Salarians perhaps. No hide or exoskeleton, so their world was probably less harsh than Tuchanka or Paloven. Colder perhaps? Because the creature had a head covering of what looked to be fur. Five digit fingers like the Batarians and Asari. "What is it doing?" she asked as she watched the creature say a word and put up a finger.

"I think..I think it is counting Admiral," Feda'Gazu said as he looked at the strange creature before him.

"Maybe it is…a basis for our translators? From what I see they use base ten math, now it is pointing at itself…a name?" Admiral Daro'Xen vas _Moreh _stated as she looked over the videofeed. As much as Shala didn't like the slightly disturbing woman, Daro'Xen was their foremost scientist, in fact _the_ scientist one would go to for anything. If it were not for her narrow-minded view of the world, she could have been Admiral of Research and Development, instead of Admiral of Special Projects. In essence, her lack of communication skills was what led her to being the second in charge of the science divisions, her immediate superior being Admiral Rael'Zorah.

**-TED-**

Hackett sat back in his command chair utterly exhausted. They'd spent the last few hours sending messages back and forth with the aliens. They'd learned quite a bit about each other, first that the Quarians were a tri-digit species, bipedal, and constantly wore skinsuits. They were a bi-gendered race, and while it was obvious that the Quarians utilize base six math, and it was obvious that they had come across ten digit species in the past. They did have translators, but it took hours of correlations before their translator could analyze English well enough for accurate translation.

He grinned as he leaned back, well at least the Quarians were a vocal species. He remembered reading about the extreme difficulty the first crews had speaking with the Medusans, who used pheromones, sign language, and certain sounds to communicate. Still that was better than the complexity of dealing with the treecats, who were a telempathic race and therefore hadn't utilized sound at all, and who also had decided to hide their intelligence for almost five hundred years.

Still they had learned quite a bit, like that there were ten other spacefaring species that formed a government known as the Citadel Council, and that activating a prime relay was actually a crime. Hackett wasn't sure that activating this prime relay constituted a crime since it was occurring in a different race's sovereign space, one that had yet to make contact with the Council. The Quarian ambassador, one Admiral Shala'Raan vas _Tonbay_, had told him that the Quarians had sent a ship to inform a Turian patrol about making first contact with a new race.

The ambassador and her retinue were going to be boarding the survey ship the _TNS Josepha Zachary_ and would be heading towards Shanxi to continue talks. It seemed that one of the primary missions of the diplomatic team was to open up trade for new ships. Apparently the Quarians were a space-locked race. When asked why, the Admiral reluctantly had informed them of her races rather depressing history.

He didn't need a treecat to know that the woman's people were desperate for any sort of help. From what information she had managed to share, the Quarian people had once been a Council race, but that a mass uprising of a renegade AI had devastated their population and the rest of the galaxy had left them to rot.

Furthermore, any attempt the Quarians had so far made to settle on a new world had faced opposition from Council races, they'd actually been evicted from several planets they'd tried to settle in favor for other races. The only options left to the Quarians were either to retake their home world, or risk the more dangerous trip into uncharted territory in desperate search for a new homeworld. It angered Hackett that the Council could be so callous in regards to one of their allies, that they'd abandon them in their time of need through no fault of their own.

He was sure that their request for more starships in exchange for their expertise would go through. Hell, their dark energy drives, or mass effect cores as Shala'Raan termed them, were going to be enough to pay for as many ships as they needed. If Torch were to become the pinnacle of mass effect technology, it would bring great wealth to the star system, and of course the rest of the Grand Alliance would get the technology, but only after Torch shifted through it first.

It wasn't that Torch wanted to jilt the rest of its allies, and even if Torch became the main manufacturer of this technology, Torch didn't have the scientific base to develop it quickly. Manticore would probably be brought in, and with them both Grayson and Haven. Fortunately, it would be Torch that had the trade agreement with the Quarians, and therefore they would have the tech edge. The Terran League and the Andermani Empire would have to play catch up, and he was sure the three main factions of humanity would do their damndest to ensure that the four hundred or so unaffiliated systems, and the Renaissance Factor, remained in the dark.

In fact, the actions of the Council made Hackett wary of them. From what he had read from the so far incomplete codex, he discovered that the Council was quite similar to the defunct Solarian League, and any comparison to that defunct government was not a good one. In fact it seemed that the Council was worse. The Rachni had been forced into extinction, the Krogan had been inflicted with a sterility plague, and the Quarians were basically forced to live in dying ships. All these actions would have horrified the Solarian League, considering how harshly the League had punished Barstool for wiping out the Amphors, Barstool still facing the consequences of the original settlers actions almost seventeen hundred years later.

He didn't even want to think about the Batarians and the Slave Trade. He knew that no matter what the Council did, Torch at the very least would never become a Council race. Not while the Batarians were there. Fortunately, that decision was well above his pay-grade so he didn't have to worry about it. He looked at his repeater and smiled as he watched _TNS Josepha Zachary_ make its way on a best time course for the Shanxi system, even as the Quarian vessel returned on the trajectory it came in on.

"Commodore Hackett! Captain Shepard's detected a fleet of ships entering the system!" Isabella X stated from her position at the comms.

"It seems that the Turian patrol is here," Hackett said as he looked over at the new set of emissions on his repeater.

"Sir! The Relay is activating!"

**-TED-**

**Codex Entries:**

**Genetic Tag: **Slaves created by Manpower Inc. are born with an ID tag imbedded on their tongues to permanently ensure that all knew that said person was a slave. The ID tag is made up of four components: (Line)-(Variant)(Gender)/(Batch)-(Place in order of birth). Most first generation immigrants to Torch bear these ID Tags in correlation to their lives as slaves and therefore harbor a deep hatred towards Manpower Inc. and any planetary system that supports the slave trade.

**Impeller Drive: ** By using a pair of impeller rings at the fore and end of a craft, a ship could then tame gravity waves in order to propel itself forward. This effect takes the form of a pair of highly stressed gravity bands above and below the ship, since these bands of gravity are super condensed and stressed they are nigh impregnable giving both civilian and military craft an impenetrable shield above and below them. The drive while useful in n-space is deadly in hyperspace and must therefore be reconfigured into a Warshawski sail to safely traverse hyperspace.

**Medusans: **Native to the planet Medusa in the Basilisk system, Medusans are a tri-symmetrical race who evolved on a moss dependant ecosystem. They are a client race of the Star Empire of Manticore, and have only recently begun exploring space. Orignally discovered while in their bronze age, Manticore oversaw their development over the centuries to ensure that being uplifted by modern technology did not destroy their shamanistic culture.

**Renaissance Factor: **A political faction of humanity. Originally a puppet arm of the Mesan Alignment, following the destruction of the Alignment, the Renaissance Factor remained as a small group of star systems. The other three factions, the Andermani Empire, Grand Alliance, and Terran League, all try to ensure that the Factor doesn't acquire the tech edge to become a dominant power in the galaxy, though it would be centuries before they could become a viable power again since most of the Factor's industry was destroyed in the Great War.

**Skinsuits: **A suit worn by naval personnel during space battles. It is the evolution of the original space suits, these suits being far more form fitting and more resistant to damage. These suits increased the survival of naval personnel, whose ships were often opened up to vacuum. Originally designed only for humans, there are now treecat and Medusan models of skinsuits.

**Spider Drive: **A drive system originally utilized by the Mesan Alignment; spider-drive vessels are the pinnacle of stealth-classed ambush ships. The drive itself consists of several powerful tractor and pressor beams to pierce the barrier between n-space and hyperspace and thus pull the vessel forward. Unfortunately, this means that the trilaterally symmetrical spider-drive vessels do not have sidewalls or impeller wedges and thus must rely on their armor and stealth. Despite advancements in spider-drive technology, spider-drive ships have yet to reach speeds over five hundred gravities, making them one of the slowest vessels in any human navy.

_**TLN Prometheus**_**:** Despite its designation as a Terran League ship, the _TLN Prometheus_ was constructed in the Manticore system as a joint project between the Terran League and the Grand Alliance. It houses the first impeller/dark energy hybrid engine system which finally allows full usage of an impeller drive's acceleration rate in conjunction with a mass effect field. This unique combination allows this survey ship to rise as far up as the Upsilon band in hyperspace, making it the fastest hyper-capable ship in existence, which is ten times faster than Streak drive ships confined to the Kappa band.

**Treecats: **Native to the planet Sphinx in the Manticoran system, Treecats are the smallest sentient race in the galaxy. The six-limbed felines are an arboreal species, having evolved in the jungles of Sphinx. However, Treecats have been known to be capable of bringing down a Krogan when either themselves or their person is threatened. Treecats are a telempathic race, and in order to further understand alien species have developed a way in which to psychically bond with other races, creating lifelong partnerships. Despite access to modern technology, Treecats instead prefer to have a symbiotic relationship with space faring races. Their oral history is rich and dates back thousands of years, and is, unfortunately, completely incapable of being written down.

-**TED**-

**Check out my new poll, I know that it won't come to pass till much much later, but I figured I'd get this down since I'm wavering on the origin of a certain character.**


	3. The Fatal Mistake

**Disclaimer: I do not own Mass Effect nor Honorverse. I am merely throwing the two worlds together. Any original characters, however, are mine.**

**No beta so forgive errors**

**Now that the chapter has been put up, the polls are officially closed.**

**Oh and for your guys' information. 1c is the speed of light.**

**I want to thank GhostForce1911 for offering to Beta, but since I took so long to write this chapter, I couldn't afford to make you guys wait any longer. Still thank you for offering, and thank you for letting me bounce ideas off you.**

**-TED-**

**Chapter 2: The Fatal Mistake**

Bellona Censorious was sure that what Primarch Caecilius Praeconinus had ordered her to do was morally wrong. True she was honored to be in command of her first battlegroup, honored to command the _Invictus_, the dreadnought which led the defense fleet for the planet of the same name, but the orders that she was given left a bad taste in her mouth. Unfortunately, orders were orders and she had no choice but to obey her primarch.

True the report from the patrol had stated that there was a pre-mass effect race trying to open up a prime relay. It was unlikely that they'd succeed but still, to conquer a race for merely trying? True they were committing a crime, but they didn't know that they were breaking a law. Even so, the Primarch didn't think that the Quarians could be trusted to dissuade the race from opening the relay. Hell, Praeconinus was sure that the Quarians would egg them on, just so that they could claim the virgin worlds that could be found on the other side. All of the benefits without any of the downsides, something that a vagrant race like the Quarians would do. Not only that, but this race seemed to be aggressive. From what the patrol reported, the Quarians had detected three dreadnoughts in the system. Only a hostile race would open a relay with dreadnoughts.

"We're coming up on the relay system now ma'am," her pilot stated and Bellona nodded. Soon they would come into contact with a new race, one that was about to be brutally punished for attempting to open a mass relay, and one that would eventually be folded in as a client race of the Turian hierarchy.

"Transitioning in five," her navigator reported as she fortified herself. Her battlegroup had five dreadnoughts and their supporting screens, a total of thirty ships. That should be enough to handle the smaller fleet that awaited her in the system.

Her fleet of thirty ships decelerated into normal space in a blast of blue-shifted energy. "Ma'am all ships reporting in," her communications officer voiced. "The _Triumphus_ will need to discharge before she jumps again ma'am."

"Any idea where the opposing fleet is?" Bellona asked as she looked about.

"Ma'am, I'm detecting gravity signatures near the relay. According to the data that the Quarians gave us, I'm reading three dreadnoughts, six battleships, four cruisers and four destroyers."

"Good proceed to take us farther into the system. If we're lucky, they'll be curious and come within firing range," Bellona said as inwardly she felt sympathy for the poor souls that were about to be punished for reaching beyond their means.

"Ma'am! The relay is activating! Vessel incoming!"

"What!" her eyes widened even as a vessel came through the relay. From her instruments she could tell that it was obviously a battleship. "It must be a prototype coming back from scouting the other side. Navigator, I want a micro jump to take the fleet between the opposing fleet and the prototype, send the information to all ships. We'll take out the prototype first and swing around to deal with the rest," she said. Those poor fools. They would have just gotten a beating here and a stern talking to before becoming a client race. Now, they had to be punished, and severely. She knew the moment she got back that her Primarch was going to establish contact with the other Primarchs and advise a fleet attack on their home system. Once their people were bombed back to the stone age, only then would they be enfolded into a client race. There was going to be a lot of innocent blood spilled because of their stupidity.

"Coordinates sent ma'am!"

"Execute!"

-**TED**-

"Kheela!" Shala said as the turian fleet entered the system, without a single Asari vessel. "They brought an entire assault fleet! Quickly you must inform the commodore that they plan to attack!"

Marlene Hibson drew back in surprise at the sudden outburst. She was the granddaughter of Ranjit Hibson, brother of Susan Hibson, and was an officer of the Star Empire of Manticore whose survey ship was on loan to the Kingdom of Torch. The _TLN Josepha Zachary_, a converted light cruiser,was currently on her way out of the system bearing the alien visitors.

"What but why?" she asked confused as the ships began to head farther into the system.

"They must think that they can enfold your species as a client race if they wipe out your military quick enough," Daro'Xen mused as she looked at the fleet. "Turians only believe in total war, and attacking in overwhelming number. This fleet is a precursor, there'll be an all out attack on any colonies within reach of the relays."

Marlene froze as she listened to the alien admirals. "Takeshi prepare to record a message," she said with a calm voice that didn't betray her inner turmoil.

"Recording skipper," the young Beowulfan com officer stated.

"To all ships, Authentication code: Lima, Mike, Echo, Niner, Seven, Zero. Case Zulu, I repeat Zulu Zulu. Approaching fleet hostile, I repeat, approaching fleet hostile. End recording."

"Recording terminated Skipper, uploading now."

_Josepha Zachary _would not be in the upcoming battle, but she hoped to whoever was listening that her message was in time to warn the commodore before all was lost.

Shala'Raan on the other hand could not help but feel sorry for the humans. True they looked as if they were the bastard children of the Asari and Quarians, and all the members of this crew looked so…young. If these were Quarians than most of the crew would be on Pilgrimage. What sort of race had their children crewing their warships?

**-TED-**

"We made it!" Andrew Davis said as _TLN_ _Prometheus_ appeared on the other side of what would one day be called the Shanxi-Arcturus Mass Relay junction.

"Andrew, I think you should be heading towards your cabin," Captain Albert Rocha said as he looked at his tactical displays.

"But Albert, we've just made history! Shouldn't we be celebrating?" the excited astrophysicist, and third ranking member of the science expedition asked as he looked at the other man. "Well…of course we have to go back the way we came, but look the Torch Navy is right there," he said grinning.

"And there's an unknown fleet in the system Andrew."

That seemed to take the wind from the man's sails, and to be honest, Albert would have wanted to celebrate as well, but whose ships were those? They were using plasma torches as propulsion and they were vectoring towards his ship on an intercept course. They'd cut just inside the Torch picket, get well within their energy range before they arrived, but he had no idea who they were. Was this a first contact situation with a race that had achieved spaceflight?

"Sir I'm reading Dark energy signatures from them!" his tac officer stated and both he and Andrew's eyes widened. Dark Energy? Was this the same race that had built these Relays? If so, why did they bring a small flotilla of cruisers. Had they trespassed? Were they about to create a diplomatic incident as their first contact with the builders of the relays?

"Incoming message from _TLN Josepha Zachary_ sir," his com officer stated, body rigid. "Playing it now," he said.

"-_I repeat, approaching fleet hostile."_

"Helm, reconfigure to impeller drive. Maneuver with thrusters, get the belly of our wedge facing those ships the moment the drive is active. Launch Keyholes and decoys. Prep the counter missiles and get our laser clusters online. Andrew get back to your cabin and get into a skinsuit," Albert ordered even as he sounded GQ. Although _Prometheus_ was a survey ship, she still had her missile tubes and energy mounts. The Manties had been worried enough about a possible Mesan attack to arm what was supposed to be a civilian survey ship. Unlike the other light cruisers of her class, _Prometheus_ didn't have pod carrying capability for that space was utilized by the enhanced sensors and science labs that all survey ships needed. Unfortunately, she also wasn't equipped with offensive missiles. Instead, she relied solely on her ridiculous acceleration, countermissiles, and energy mounts. Without her impeller bands online, _Prometheus_ was a lamb being led to the slaughter, and Albert knew it. He had to rely on her countermissiles and lasers to protect her long enough for the drive to come online.

"Energy spike! The alien fleet has disappeared!" his tac officer responded. Albert frowned even as his XO handed him his skinsuit. He stripped quickly and put it on, wincing when the plumbing connections were made.

-**TED-**

The absent fleet reappeared just within _Prometheus'_ countermissile envelope in a burst of blue shifted energy. The five dreadnoughts fired their mass accelerator cannons. Five twenty kilogram slugs went flying towards the _Prometheus_ at .013c every two seconds.

_Prometheus_ spun on her axis, presenting her unarmored belly to the incoming fire. The Warshawski sail, a pair of beautiful discs of gravity began to recede as the vessel reconfigured to impeller drive. The beautiful auroras danced and swirled as the hundred kilometer long gravity discs were pulled back towards the ship. Her laser cluster were online and ready, and she began spewing thirty countermissiles every thirty seconds. The rate of fire from the dreadnoughts allowed their slugs to slowly get closer and closer to the _Prometheus._ The Keyhole facing the enemy opened fire, lasers shooting out and incinerating the slugs as they passed by. When they reached the 20,000 kilometer mark, _Prometheus' _lasers joined in the fray. Last ditch lasers blasted out, incinerating the slugs and turning them into their composite atoms.

One of the decoys exploded magnificently as it took a hit meant for the_ Prometheus_. Two more of her sister decoys joined it in death as they took the mortal blows meant for their mother. The last slug in that volley managed to escape the laser holocaust that destroyed its fellows as it continued flying towards the _Prometheus_, one of the few slugs that had been fired accurately in her direction.

-**TED—**

"Incoming slug!" the tac officer shouted as finally a slug managed to evade their defenses. The slugs were a combat nightmare, since they had no drives of their own they were hellish to detect. Had it not been for Ensign Mercedes' brilliant idea to program the countermissiles to target the faint traces of dark energy the slugs were bathed in, they would have been peppered by enemy fire already.

"All hands brace for impact!" Captain Rocha shouted. At .013c the slugs velocity was enough to pierce through _Prometheus'_ unarmored belly. He had hoped that the bands could be reconfigured in time, but it looked like it was all for nothing. Without her bands _Prometheus_ was a sitting duck, completely at her enemy's mercy.

"Impact in five!" his tac officer shouted again.

"Impeller bands online!" his helm officer crowed in triumph.

The vessel shook wildly as it suffered from the kinetic impact of the slug slamming against an impenetrable barrier. The ship was jostled before the secondary band came online, hiding _Prometheus_ from her enemy's sensors.

"Helm take us out of range. Keep the belly facing the enemy."

"Sir!" his tac officer said, surprised that they'd be running when now they could take the fight to the enemy.

"We have VIPs onboard. We leave the fleet to the navy. This ship has to make it to Shanxi, or everything we just lived through was for nothing." _Prometheus_ came first. They needed to get her safely away so that the success of her maiden voyage could allow the militaries of their respective star nations to start building warships like her.

-**TED —**

Bellona cursed as her prize began to fly away from her at incredible speeds. The battleship flew away at nearly the speed of light. They had almost destroyed it. She had seen the slug that had almost gutted the vessel, if that damn gravity shield hadn't appeared! Apparently they needed to reconfigure the gravity bands in order to fly the ship in normal space or in FTL, because now the ship that had at first been nothing more than a sitting duck was flying away at .95c!

"Ma'am, the enemy fleet has cut their acceleration…They're launching fighters! Three thousand fighters!" her tac officer gasped as she cursed once more. "Launch our fighters, have them intercept theirs before they get within range of the fleet. Activate GARDIAN lasers. Turn the fleet around, target the dreadnoughts!"

**-TED—**

Junius really wanted to know what the commander was smoking. Sending a scant five hundred fighters against the three thousand fighters vectoring in on them. All of those fighters were also flying near the speed of light, in fact the readouts on his fighter read the approaching enemy was flying at .99c! Still the armament on those dreadnoughts had to be ridiculously light in order to make room for so many fighters.

His flight group would engage the fighters far from the dreadnoughts, plenty of distance away as the dreadnoughts finished their slow lumbering turns and brought their fire to bear on the ships millions of kilometers away. "Alpha Leader to all fighters, prepare for engagement," he said as he finally got visual confirmation of his target.

Those weren't fighters! Spirits! They were missiles! "Alpha Leader to all fighters, engage the missiles! Engage the missiles!" The fighters broke ranks as they charged at the enemy missiles, spewing fire at the objects, but their gravity bands were too resilient, they simply maneuvered to protect themselves before continuing! Those missiles flew like fighters!

"Damn, I can't get a bead on this one. All fighters switch to missiles. Shoot these bastards out of the stars!" It was at that moment that the Dazzlers activated, sending garbage data into his ship and screwing with his sensors. He was blinded temporarily and his ship fell off course.

He didn't see the torpedo behind him until it was too late. The torpedo unloaded it's powerful graser into the cockpit of his craft. He was instantly killed, and the graser pierced through his vessel to claim the life of his wingman. For four hellish seconds it fired, swinging on its thrusters and clipping another fighter, gutting a fifth before the sheer power of its graser burned the torpedo into nothingness.

Fifteen similar torpedoes made short work of the fighter squadrons. Once there was a screening element of four hundred fighters, after four seconds of concentrated graser fire the fighting screen was dropped by half. The follow up wave left only thirty fighters functional. None survived the third.

**-TED—**

Alex X gritted his teeth as he controlled the missiles flying towards the enemy fleet. It angered him that he had to use up the Dazzlers and Graser Torpedoes far too early, but that fighter compliment was something that neither he, the skipper, or the commodore had expected.

Still the missiles were not without countermeasures, for he still had enough of a different class of ECM emitting missiles left.

**-TED—**

"Shoot those missiles down!" Bellona roared as her ship fired it's GARDIAN lasers. Her crew had been in a state of shock since they first discovered the three thousand fighters flying towards her. They shock became astonishment as those were not fighters, but missiles.

Even so, her command would survive this, and she knew she'd get at the enemy fleet commander. Already two of the enemy's ships had broken off, heading to join the battleship that the prototype was rendezvousing with. It was her thirty ships against their fourteen. They were outnumbered two to one.

The computer controlled GARDIAN lasers shot down the first couple hundred missiles, but for some strange reason or other, the rest of the missiles learned of their capabilities. Did these aliens put VI's in their missile systems? Bellona didn't care to know as she watches as the swarm of missiles descended on her squadron. Suddenly, the missiles began to multiply form the mere fifteen hundred left, to thousands. Her defenses were swamped trying to pick out which ones were real and which ones were illusions, but they reacted too late and the missiles struck. Although there were enough missiles to wipe out her entire fleet, the missiles that exploded only targeted two of her dreadnoughts and their screens.

Bomb pumped X-ray lasers pierced the armor of her ships. Though their ablative armor could withstand most of those hits, the sheer multitude of the lasers prevented that from occurring. They burned past the protective plates and burrowed deep into the hull, exposing her crews to space.

The Dreadnought _Tristitia_ was now a blackened hull, bleeding atmosphere as she started to drift away from the battle group. She fared better than her sister _Ira_ whose back had broken, and secondary explosions shuddered through her frame before a containment failure made the kilometer long dreadnought explode in a ball of plasma. Unable to move away, _Tristitia _was caught in her blast and soon joined her in oblivion. Of their escorts there was little to be said, for there was little left of them to see.

Bellona's heart ached, in that opening salvo she had lost nearly half of her fleet! Of her thirty ships only eighteen remained. Her fleet's bombardment had been casually blocked by those ships, who had presented their damn gravity shields to block her slugs.

"Ma'am the _Triumphus_ is preparing to jump."

"Contact Captain Arturius!" she snapped.

An older Turian appeared on the screen, he had only the left side of his face painted a dark blue as he looked calmly at her. "Commodore Censorious," he said in greeting.

"Why the hell are your jump drives hot Arturius!"

"I plan on jumping into the middle of their formation and firing everything I've got Ma'am. To buy you and the rest of the fleet time to jump to safety," he said calmly, though there was steel in his eyes.

"I-"

"I know what you are thinking ma'am, but we need to get our combat data back to the fleet. These primitives are dangerous. We have to crush them hard, and for us to do that, we must know how they fight."

She bit back her retort. What the older Turian was saying was true. They had to get back to Turian territory, to rally the fleet. This new presence was a danger to the Council races, and needed to be stopped preemptively, or a war as bad as the Rachni wars was going to occur. Especially since it was obvious that they were an aggressive species seeking conquest. "It will take us thirty seconds to jump," she said, already giving the order to prep their drives.

Arturius nodded. "Spirits be with you Commodore. I'll hold them off as long as I can," he said to her before his transmission ended.

**-TED-**

"Ma'am! They're building up dark energy over there!" Alex stated as he prepared his defenses. The enemy was going to jump again, he just knew it, and he was going to be ready.

-**TED-**

The _Triumphus _jumped into the middle of the fleet, firing every missile, every GARDIAN Laser, and every slug it could before it was destroyed.

_TLN Boonville_ took a 20 kilometer slug to the bow. It's bow-sidewall wasn't strong enough to absorb the impact, and so the projectile hammered deep into the vessel, causing the light cruiser to list in place. The damage to the inertial compensators allowed the gravimetric sheer to turn the surviving crew into gooey puddles splattered all over the bulkheads. _TLN Philipi _took a laser blast meant for the heavy cruiser _TLN Carnifex Ferry_, the unshielded spider-drive frigate lost its starboard broadside as the laser burned through that entire section of the ship before the beam impotently struck _Carnifex Ferry's_ lower impeller band.

Two lasers struck _TLN Shilo_ taking out Radar Two, Laser One, and driving deep into the vessel, damaging both the bridge, and the flag bridge.

The bulkhead exploded, sending shrapnel all over the bridge. Henry Benton screamed as a piece of the bulkhead impaled him to his chair, his body dead long before it realized it. Jason Cruz's shock chair broke, sending the San Martino flying overhead, to slam face first against the holo display. What the impact didn't damage, the electrical surge fried.

Sharon D took over her dying department head's job learning from the flag bridge that the Commodore had taken shrapnel to the face, luckily, and by god how damn lucky the man was, he had survived and was being taken to medical. She sent a message to _Carnifex Ferry_ to inform Captain Webster that he was now in command of the flotilla.

Hannah Shepard rode her command chair like the Valkyries of old. Her eyes hardened like glaciers as she listened to the damage reports streaming in. "All energy batteries open fire! Take those bastards out!"

Alex X, covered in the blood of one of his junior ratings who had been decapitated by flying shrapnel, fired his energy weapons at the dreadnought. It joined the fire of seventeen other ships, to pound the dreadnought into its composite atoms, but the dreadnought's mission was complete, the rest of the alien fleet had fled.

**-TED-**

**Codex Entries:**

**Apollo missiles: **Command and control missiles that are launched in a missile broadside that allows tac officers to have real-time control of their missile systems. Their inclusion in a missile broadside increases the probability of direct hits by nearly 100%.

**Case Zulu:** A military code used by the Grand Alliance with only one meaning: Invasion imminent. All instances of Case Zulu are taken seriously and usually result in reinforcement of the system by any nearby Grand Alliance fleets.

**Dazzlers: **ECM emitting missiles that attempt to overload enemy sensors with garbage data in order to hide their deadlier cousins.

**Dragon's teeth: **ECM emitting missiles designed to confuse the enemy sensors into believing that there are more missiles than there truly are, allowing the enemy ship to waste countermissiles on invalid targets.

**Ghost Rider platform:** Ghost Rider platforms are stealth reconnaissance platforms developed by the Star Empire of Manticore. Fitted with powerful sensors and a gravitic pulse generator, the platforms can give detailed information of enemy ships across an entire star system.

**Graser Torpedoes: **The main missile armament of spider-drive ships; powerful grasers attached to engine drives, these gamma firing laser cannons are powerful enough to punch through capital ship's defenses. Once fired, the torpedoes only last for four seconds before the sheer heat of the graser destroys the torpedo.

**Mark 20 'Keyhole V' platform:** Designed to enhance countermissile sensors, the Keyhole platform has been improved to the point that it not only has capability of increasing the telemetry links of a warship, and thus the number of missiles it could launch, but also doubling up as anti-missile, anti-LAC, and anti-Spider-drive defense platforms. Equipped with laser clusters, and a single graser, a Keyhole sensor platform serves well in its duty of ship defense.

**Missile Pods: **Designed to carry multiple missiles, missile pods are the primary armament for all warships heavier than a destroyer. Missile pods can carry anywhere from six to ten missiles, and are utilized to multiply a vessels missile broadside in space engagements. Missile pods are extremely vulnerable to proximity soft kills (nuclear fire) and are therefore carried within ships designed to carry them. The amount of missile pods that can be fired in a single broadside is limited to the amount of telemetry links a warship has.

**Survey Ships**: Designed for long periods of time in space, Survey ships take on the roll of deep space explorers for humanity. These vessels are former warships, primarily light and heavy cruisers, whose armament has been taken out and replaced with extremely powerful sensors and well equipped science labs. Due to their former military origins, Survey Ships are the second fastest civilian ships employed by humanity, thanks in part to their military grade impeller rings and inertial compensators.

**Warshawski Sail: **By reconfiguring a ship's Impeller Bands, they can create a pair of discs that are hundreds of kilometers in diameter. These discs are then used to navigate in hyperspace. Due to their ability to trap the energies found there, Warshawski sails can also be utilized to power the ship, thereby making interstellar travel economical. While the discs themselves are invisible to the naked eye, the energies that they trap can be, creating beautiful auroras surrounding the ship. Warshawski sails are also utilized when transitioning through a wormhole junction.

-**TED**-

**So, how'd you guys like the battle? I know I pussy footed around it for a bit at the beginning, but I was a bit worried about portraying it accurately and engagingly. I also vacillated on including the Manticoran missile swarm, but the course of the battle actually allowed a pretty effective usage of it. Forgive me fact checkers if my missile cycle times are off. The honorverse wikia is unhelpful on that score and I didn't want to delay this even more by having to go hunting through the books for accurate missile cycle times. **

**Please Review!**


	4. Before the Storm

**Disclaimer: I do not own Mass Effect nor Honorverse. I am merely throwing the two worlds together. Any original characters, however, are mine.**

**Apparently from the reviews I've gotten, I wasn't technical enough. Sorry about that guys, but I'd rather not be as technically focused as Weber is, and I'll admit to not having bought the technical books that go with Honorverse so most of my tech info I got from the Honorverse wikia, which isn't as helpful as I thought it was. Nor do I want to go the path of Halo/ME fics were it's a constant one-sided massacre. The battle wasn't much of a battle, more of a skirmish so that each side could get a taste of the other's tech. I don't know if I'll be sticking to one bridge at the beginning though. I'm saving that for the Normandy, I might skip between several bridges and I might not, it all depends on how it flows for me.**

**Gah! I feel so stupid, I went back to reread the fic and I realized I made a continuity error in chapter 2! I'm going to fix it and reupdate it right after I finish this chapter!**

**Also sorry for the delay, our cat pulled a Houdini and hasn't been seen since. We recently got a new pup, and I'm staying awake all night to make sure she doesn't wreck the house while everyone else sleeps.**

**-TED-**

**Chapter 3: Before the Storm**

Shala'Raan was sitting in her cabin, this was the third cabin she'd been interred in since leaving the _Tonbay_, and the second one on a human ship. It took her quite some time to get used to the spaciousness of the cabin she was given, so used to having to share her quarters with the rest of her family. She found that these humans had very slow vessels, only capable of anywhere from 500 to 800 gravities in acceleration. With one exception, the ship she currently was on was a prototype vessel that was faster than anything she'd ever seen. She'd never heard of a ship that could instantaneously move at the speed of light, nor a vessel that could travel twelve light years in a matter of hours, and yet here she was on a ship that could do both.

She was also grateful that she had forced Daro'Xen to bring at least six months worth of rations. Daro'Xen had assumed that since these creatures looked so similar to Quarians, that they were dextro-amino-acid based sentients, when they were not. True, she didn't like the protein sludge that they had to eat, but it was better than starving; she didn't know how long she and her entourage would be in human space. Her call had already saved them from the embarrassment of having to send for food. Though she wished she had asked for the _Idenna _to stay instead of letting the vessel set up a rendezvous point with the Migrant Fleet. At least they had the _Bavea,_ one of _Idenna's _scout vessels, to serve their medical and dietary needs. The scout ship was docked in the _Prometheus' _boat bay.

From what she'd been able to gleam from an over eager and very excited astrophysicist was that the humans had colonized a vast region of space. Oddly enough, they were a very politically diverse group, with over two thousand separate star nations, something that completely had baffled her. Not only that, but they had come into contact with at least twelve other races, none of whom were as technologically advanced as themselves. She didn't think that the Asari were even half as advanced as these people. From what Daro'Xen had discovered, a discovery that almost had the young admiral arrested for espionage, was that these people used miniature mass accelerators to launch their missiles into space. She hadn't even thought it was possible to have a viable mass accelerator weapon that was that small! And then to make matters worse, the captain had introduced her to the concept of pulsers, hand held mass accelerator weapons!

Still, she mused, she couldn't help but feel a little nervous as the ship flew towards its final destination. She was supposed to start talks with the Queen of Torch, who had just happened to be visiting Shanxi for the birth of her youngest great-grandchild.

**-TED-**

"I can't believe you lost her! " Zaeed winced as the captain of Lara's Own shouted into his ear. It wasn't his fault that he had lost the old bat. The cunning old crone had given him the slip with the dreaded women's restroom trick, one that he should have seen coming. He just hadn't expected a woman who was almost 260 years old to be the one pulling it on him. She had seemed so nice, so sweet. He should have known a woman as old and powerful as Berry Zilwicki would have known how to easily evade her young bodyguards, the woman was the daughter of Anton Zilwicki, the greatest spy of 20th century Diaspora, and had almost two and a half centuries of practice at escaping her keepers!

"I didn't know she was the type to give me the goddamn slip," the young soldier grunted as he peered through the crowd, Jessie, his trusty pulse rifle slung across his back. That bitchy old gun had given Zaeed Massani, formerly V-23b/297-2/16, the keys to his freedom, and so he kept the blood thirsty old bitch on hand at all times.

"Slip or not, we just got a communiqué from Commodore Hackett. We've got incoming alien dignitaries that want to speak with our head of government, and if you can't find her before they get here, it's your ass on the line Massani!"

Zaeed scowled as he continued to work his way through the crowds. All he had to really do was find the most crowded shop on the plaza, that would be where the Queen was. It was something of a Torch phenomenon, no matter where the Queen went she was never unaccompanied because her subjects were so damn devoted to her. He knew that if he had been serving in any other star nation, they'd string him up for losing the Queen, but nobody would dare try and assassinate the Queen on a Torch planet, because if they did then they were dead meat. He'd seen the vid of it happening once; an assailant had tried to kill the Queen as she was eating ice cream at her favorite small restaurant, but the crowd had surged the man heedless of their own losses and had literally torn him limb from limb in their rage.

He stopped and looked over at a nearby baby clothing store before determinedly heading in that direction. There were far too many patrons for a store of that size, over sixty people milling patiently outside it, a protective vanguard of the Queen who was probably shopping inside.

**-TED-**

Berry Zilwicki was calmly perusing the baby clothing isle for her as of yet unborn great grandchild. Personally, she wasn't fond of the boy's father and had made a point that the man would have no access to the Zilwicki fortune if he didn't get off his lazy behind and find himself a job. No, she wasn't a fan of Ronald Taylor, and she knew that the feeling was mutual.

She could not help the smirk that formed on her face as her young bodyguard resumed his place in the background. Zaeed was a good boy, a bit crude, but very willing to do his job. A bit too willing, his presence could be a bit smothering at times, so she got her revenge on him by slipping away. "Zaeed, stop being a wallflower and carry my shopping bag," she called as she continued to look at baby clothes.

She heard a bleek of amusement from the cream colored treecat lounging on a nearby rack. She might have given Zaeed the slip, but she would never be able to get away from Runs-in-Shadows. The six-limbed feline was her assigned treecat bodyguard, something every dignitary in the Grand Alliance had to put up with. At least Runs-in-Shadows, or Alexis as Berry liked to call her, had a sense of humor and had willingly gone along with Berry's plan.

She knew that it was necessary to have bodyguards, goodness knows how often her husband, and former captain of her guard, tried to instill in her a sense of her importance, but she was born a street rat and even now still remembered eking out a living in Old Chicago's sewers. Even being elevated to being Queen of a star nation would ever make her forget her early years, and the independence she learned then.

And the thought of Zaeed or Alexis dying for her like so many had already unsettled her. "Come along Zaeed," she said picking out a rather fetching blue baby tunic out of the rack as she patiently waited for the hardcore marine to comply.

"Ma'am, you're needed at the Duke's palace. We've got incoming dignitaries..and they want to speak with you ma'am," Zaeed ineffectually tried to get his Queen on the government's schedule. Unfortunately, getting Queen Berry to do anything she didn't want to was like herding cats.

"Yes yes I've heard. They just reached the outer system and it'll take them a good twelve hours to get here. Plenty of time to get a little shopping done don't you think?" she asked giving the man a warm smile and extending her shopping bag filled hand. The marine grumbled petulantly at her and her smile only grew as the man grudgingly accepted the pink shopping bags.

**-TED-**

"There are so many ships," Shala said awed as Prometheus made it's n-space transition. It had taken her awhile to discover that the dreadnoughts that she and the others had met were actually nothing more than light and heavy cruisers, and she could see why now.

"Those are mostly made up of merchantmen and civilian craft, if you look over here you can see the Torch Navy's 3rd fleet," Andrew Davis said as he highlighted the ships.

The crafts took Shala's breath away. While they all shared the same basic cylindrical design, the highlighted superdreadnoughts were the size of the Destiny Ascension, and there were ten of them! Around them was a fleet of other ships, both stealth and combat types. "So many combat vessels..but what is this…LAC Carrier?" she asked confused as she looked at the name. They were the size of dreadnoughts, but were listed as something else entirely, and their design was definitely different than the design of the dreadnoughts that flanked them.

"Ah yes, well you see Light Attack Craft, or LACs are crewed by five to ten personnel. They're relatively cheap to build and every navy tends to have hundreds to thousands of them. The downside is that the LAC is not hyper capable and so was suited for system defense, but during the First Haven-Manticoran War, the Manticorans developed the LAC Carrier. It would house the LACs and carry them to battle, serving as the mothership. As such, LAC Carriers are not heavily armed, and usually stay away from the fighting after they launch their LAC squadrons."

"I see," and she did. The ship design was ingenious. To use a dedicated vessel to launch their formerly restricted craft allowed the military to increase their fighting power. Just the mere concept of a dedicated carrier ship would be a boon to the Migrant Fleet, even if they had to jury rig a cruiser or something to carry all their fighters. Still these humans were a very odd species, their fighters were the size of gunboats, yet from the way that Andrew was prattling on, those same fighters were designed with the ability to cripple Dreadnoughts and Superdreadnoughts.

Her eyes widened as two fleets suddenly entered the system. They both bore signs as being friendlies, but one fleet had thirty more Superdreadnoughts and the other had ten. "Who are they?" she said as she looked at the new vessels. The fleet in the system had just quadrupled in strength if this was what she was seeing.

"Reinforcements. The Captain sent out the Case Zulu so we'll be fortifying the system. The larger fleet would be Torch's Home Fleet, the other would be Torch's Fourth Fleet. The First and Second Fleets should be arriving in the next few days, and if Torch's navy can't cut it, the Grand Alliance is going to lend us their Fifth Fleet as well."

"And how many ships are in the Grand Alliance's fifth fleet?" she asked awed at the sheer size. If Home Fleet was their largest, and the other Torch fleets held ten capital ships each, how many ships did they have?

"We'll have another hundred SDs and their supporting screens by the end of next week."

"Kheela," she whispered to herself. 170 Superdreadnoughts to fight off the Turians measly 30 dreadnoughts, and that was if the Turians sent their entire fleet. They were going to utterly break the Turian military if the Turians attacked.

Andrew grinned as he heard the woman's shocked awe. True most of what he told her was information he shouldn't have been privy to, considering that he was just the third ranking member of the science expedition, but it paid well to have married into one of Manticore's leading families.

Of course the Captain could have jumped within the hyper-limit, but the necessary stop at the Hyper-Com station required them to exit hyperspace outside the hyper-limit, and Captain Rocha thought that the hours it would take to reach Shanxi at sub-light speeds would give both the government, and their alien guests, time to prepare themselves for the coming dialogue.

**-TED-**

"Can someone explain to me how the premier navy in the galaxy just got their asses handed to them by a bunch of primitive savages?" Primarch Praeconinus bellowed as he looked at the assembled Turians before him. The Primarch of Invictus was in a rage, he had been absolutely humiliated and the losses he took were horrible.

"I take full responsibility of the losses we sustained Primarch," Bellona Censorious said as she hung her head in shame. She'd lost half her battle fleet and had only managed to inflict minimal losses on the enemy in return.

"No…it could not be helped," Praeconinus continued eyes still steely, but his demeanor much calmer now. "You had no idea what sort of weapons they had. Shielded torpedoes that fire gamma beams…missiles with laser warheads…if I didn't see the combat data I wouldn't have believed you," he said as he sat back his visage drained now. "We must get the fleet gathered..a race with this sort of technology, they could become a threat far worse than the Krogan ever were," he muttered.

"There is some good news sir," Bellona tried to interject.

"Oh and what would that be?"

"Their ships..they may be built on a massive scale, but they are extraordinarily slow…and from our readings they can't jump into FTL within the gravity well of large celestial bodies."

"I…I see…so you propose we adopt Asari combat tactics when dealing with these aliens…fly in from multiple vectors, gets our shots in and bug out."

"Yes sir, and I would have our dreadnoughts stay far out of their range, at least three astronomical units out, or on the other side of the system if necessary. They seem to have some trouble initialing detecting our projectiles, but they knew we were launching something. If we can fire outside of their sensor envelope, then we can deal far more damage without any risk to the dreadnoughts."

"Yes…that would be the best way to do it. Well Bellona, it wasn't a total loss. You managed to get us some valuable intel on these aliens. I'll have to contact Primarch Fedorian and the others and see if we can take these bastards out before they decide to invade us."

**-TED-**

"Councilor Russus," Councilor Tevos said as she made her way towards the red marked Turian who was the current councilor for his species.

"Ah Councilor Tevos, nice to see you outside of the Assembly hall," he said as he sat back in his seat. He was enjoying a light luncheon on the Presidium and motioned for the Asari Councilor to join him.

Tevos sat next to the other councilor and waved away the waiter who tried to take her order. "Russus…Moeror I have received some troubling reports."

"Ah you must be talking about the fleet detachments. We're sending them back to the home system for refit. We've recently developed some new technology that the Primarchs decided should be implemented on our ships post haste. I'm sorry to say, but that'll leave the burden of protecting Citadel space to the Asari and Salarian fleets until the refit is complete," he explained as he took a few bites of his meal.

"Are you or are you not attempting to wipe out the Migrant Fleet?" Tevos asked as she looked at the other man.

Russus leaned back and let out a laugh. "Wipe out the Migrant Fleet why on earth would the Hierarchy bother with vagrants?"

"If not that, then why is the Migrant Fleet and the Turian fleet consolidating their forces around Relay 314?"

Russus glowered but stayed silent, his mind working quickly. The Asari were on to what was happening, it was conceivable that they would try to prevent the conflict between the Turian Fleet and the Unknowns, and he wasn't going to tip off their hand in an attempt to placate his fellow Councilor. He himself didn't like that the Turian military was ready to go to war with an unknown race, but the knowledge of a Turian defeat could not be known. Their position as the Galaxy's police force must remain in place, the knowledge of Turian dreadnoughts being destroyed could not reach the lesser races, so the Unknowns needed to be dealt with quickly and their technology acquired before another race could get their hands on it. "There's nothing you need to worry about Tevos, the Quarians just tried to illegally open a relay and we're making sure they don't try again," he lied.

"I see…well then I'll leave you to your meal," Tevos said as she stood up and made her way towards the elevators. This wasn't over, she would get down to the bottom of this, and hopefully before STG did.

**-TED-**

"Zaeed do you think this outfit makes me look a bit too pretentious?" Berry asked as she looked herself in the mirror. Her poor-horrified and possibly traumatized bodyguard shook his head in the negative. It was one thing to be the Queen's bodyguard, but quite the other to be asked his opinion of her state of dress.

"No Ma'am, you look as regal as ever Ma'am," Zaeed said quickly, shooting a glare at the snickering tree-cat lounging on a nearby chair. Alexis was a damn hedonist, and a sadist. He should have known when the cat had told him the Queen had wanted to see him that it would be some sort of trap. As much as he loved her, the Queen was too much like an annoying grandma that liked tweaking his nose whenever she goddamn could, and he as her bodyguard had to take it. He was a soldier, not a fashion designer damn it!

Alexis bleeked her amusement before signing to the queen. Too much purple. It makes you look like a plumb.

"Why my dear Alexis, are you calling me fat?" Berry asked as she turned to look at the cream colored 'cat.

Ask me no questions and I will tell no lies my lady. The 'cat signed before giving her a toothy grin.

"I see," Berry said swatting at the 'cat with her fan, the 'cat chittered as it dodged her blow.

"Ma'am shouldn't we start heading towards the Duke's Palace?" Zaeed asked once more.

Berry frowned as she looked herself in the mirror. She had aged well, her wrinkles had given her a more regal look, but was not so severe as to prevent her from seeming motherly. "I think a change of venue is in order. The Aliens and I will have our legal chat, but only after I've shown them some of our culture. Wouldn't you agree Zaeed?"

Zaeed hung his head. "Yes Ma'am." He said, though he was already dreading the chewing out he was going to get. Queen Berry wanted to have a bit of fun, and even he could recognize that she was trying to soften up the aliens by being overly friendly, rather than imposing. Captain Rocha's and Commodore Hackett's reports showed that the Quarian people were in desperate need. Shunned, a lone, and desparate, and if he knew Queen Berry then it was only a matter of time before the Quarians found a home, because his Queen was not the type to leave the desperate unattended to. After all, Torch was born from the dregs of society and had become a shining example to the rest of the galaxy. No matter what, Queen Berry was going to make a good impression on these alien visitors.

-**TED-**

**Codex Entries:**

**Slave Lines:** Utilizing enhanced genetic manipulation, Manpower Inc. has been able to provide slaves that fit for any conceivable role. These genetic slaves are bred into specific lines, each line specializing in certain genetic traits best suited for desired roles. The lines are as follows:

C-line: A popular line of slaves made with stunning beauty, usually utilized as sex toys.

D-line: A cheap line of slaves made with little genetic engineering for general use.

E-line: A cheap line of slaves made with little genetic engineering for general use.

F-line: A specialized line of slaves developed for heavy and intensive labor purposes.

J-line: A specialized line of slaves developed for technological work.

K-line: A highly diverse line of slaves developed as personal servants with tasks ranging from housekeeping to acrobatics.

V-line: A caste of slaves developed for heavy combat and bodyguard work, the main source of Mesan ground forces.

**Hyper Communication Hub:** Developed from the technologies utilized in the Ghost Rider platforms, the Hyper Communication Hub allows faster than light communication for all members of the major human factions. By utilizing grav-lance technology a Communication Hub can send information to several communications buoys in hyperspace, thereby allowing near instantaneous communication. Unfortunately, reception deteriorates the farther one system is away from the other.


	5. The First Battle of Shanxi

**Disclaimer: I do not own Mass Effect nor Honorverse. I am merely throwing the two worlds together. Any original characters, however, are mine.**

**As much as I love our puppy, I have discovered that cute little animals are creativity killers. I'm spending almost every waking hour watching over her, and by the time I get free time…no juice . This chapter is mostly being written when the pup falls asleep.**

**Chapter 4: The First Battle of Shanxi**

Admiral Williams looked into his repeater, taking in the assembled fleet. 170 of the Alliance's ships of the wall, 60 of those being top of the line stealth ships. The civilian ships had been evacuated out of the system, leaving only vessels capable of engaging in the looming battle.

He'd split the fleet into several groups; Home Fleet had taken position orbiting Shanxi itself, 2nd and 4th Fleets were holding position around the Hypercom Hub, 1st fleet had taken position covering the terminus and 3rd fleet was patrolling the inner system. Stealth cruisers and destroyers were scattered throughout the system in small capable flotillas. He had no idea where the enemy was going to emerge, but he was hoping that the stealth ships would give him a wide enough net to ensnare them before they could deal fatal damage to Shanxi's infrastructure. The Grand Alliance's 5th fleet was being held in reserve, leaving most of the fighting to Torch's growing navy as a matter of honor.

Admiral Williams knew the CO of Fifth Fleet well. After all anyone who mattered would have heard of the black sheep of the Houseman family; Reginald Houseman the Third had proven himself to be a capable commander several times over. Still his musings were not going to get the battle over with already. He looked out at his Flag Bridge, taking in his officers, officers who were more than ready to lay down their lives for their people, and he could not wait for the battle that was to come.

-**TED -**

Bellona Censorious could not help but admit that she was nervous. True she had most of the Turian navy at her back this time, but she still remembered the holocaust of destruction that had besieged her first fleet command. Now here she was, one of the division commanders of an outright attack against the aliens that had so humiliated her before.

"Ma'am, Fleet Commander Scipio's flagship has sent the signal. We will be entering the alien's home system in twenty minutes," her com officer stated and she gave him a nod. Soon, soon she would get her second chance. Soon she would be able to avenge the spirits of her comrades whose deaths haunted her dreams for the last two weeks.

"Sound General Quarters. Prepare the vessel for long range combat. GARDIAN lasers at full power," she ordered as she prepped the _Invictus_ for what might prove to be one of the greatest battles of her career. She prayed that the spirit of _Invictus_ would keep her crew safe.

**-TED-**

Shala'Raan was sitting at a café enjoying something that she hadn't expected. She was drinking coffee, a human dish that she could actually ingest safely. What she was eating was considered a delicacy, imported from another planet and given only to certain dignitaries, because only dignitaries from the planet the coffee beans had come from were able to drink it. She still had distilled the drink at least three times, making it lose a lot of its potency, but being able to taste an alien meal through an emergency induction port was something she had not expected.

The drink, and many of the meals they had had, came from the planet Grayson. A heavy metal world whose plants and animals were poisonous to the inhabitants. In fact, the very air was poisonous to humans and yet they'd settled the planet anyway. The food she was eating was actually a hybrid designed to take root in Grayson soil and was engineered enough so that the Graysons, who had genetically engineered themselves to be some weird amalgam of both dextro and levo species, could drink it. The changes to both the fruit and the Graysons made it poisonous to anyone not from their system, and yet only mildly toxic to a Dextro. This allowed her to eat Grayson style meals once every two or three days at the expense of Queen Berry. The small diminutive monarch was definitely a force to be reckoned with, and had proceeded to pull both Shala and Daro to see all the great sites that Shanxi had to offer.

She was smiling as she listened to the small elderly woman chatting with Daro'Xen about some sort of technology or other. While she was understandably nervous about the looming battle, Queen Berry seemed to have faith that her people would beat them back and to be honest Shala expected them to. Oh she might only be twenty three and extraordinarily young to be an Admiral, but she knew that the Turian military was heavily outmatched with the juggernaut that the Turians were going to fling themselves against, and it was only a modest sized star nation to boot! She wondered how the Turians would have fared if they'd engaged the Republic of Haven or heaven forbid the Star Empire of Manticore.

Then one of the Queen's bodyguards stepped forward and murmured something into the woman's ear. The elderly woman stopped smiling and nodded grimly. After a moment she shot both Quarians a grin. "Come Shala, Daro. We're going to go see my great grandson," she said to the two women as she stood up and started to leave the café, a large portion of the patrons following her. That had been another thing that had puzzled Shala when she'd first met the queen, her lack of a severe body guard detail, but now she knew that any citizen of a Torch world would be more than willing to put their lives on the line when it came to their monarch and there was nowhere that she was unprotected.

**-TED-**

"Sir the enemy fleet has just jumped into the system. They're hiding on the other side of the sun" Williams' astrogation officer reported.

"So they decided for an in-system jump," Williams said frowning. "Alright, send Lieutenant Anderson's stealth squadron to scout it out. Activate the outer system defenses and all vessels cut their accelerations and bring up their bow walls," he added. Anderson wouldn't have the combat strength to effectively wipe out the enemy forces, nor could his stealth squadron get away if things hit the fan but they needed the intel from Anderson's drones.

"Roger that relaying orders," Williams' com officer stated.

"Admiral detecting blue shifts to port!" His tac officer stated just before _TNS Genghis_ lurched after taking several hits from enemy energy fire.

"Report!" Williams shouted.

"Missile tubes 1 and 3 are out. Magazine 5 is open to space. Lasers 5, 7 and 13 are damaged as are Grasers 7 and 9. Radar 3 is down."

"_Santa Rosa, Wildcat, _and _Fredericktown_ are reporting mild damage. We've lost the cruisers _Appomattox _and _Blakely_."

"Mikhailovich! Take evasive action! Get those cruisers closer and provide covering fire! Have all CLACs launch their squadrons!" Williams ordered his Flag Captain. The man on the screen seemed just as grim at the losses he'd suddenly taken. He gave a curt nod and began issuing orders.

"Admiral, they did another in-system jump. A force of about fifty cruisers and another hundred frigates ran slashing attacks on our ships." Even as he spoke Williams repeater flashed showing enemy ship losses as those vessels vainly tried to dodge the returning fire. With the LAC squadrons joining the fray, those small agile crafts were quickly losing the edge they had over the heavier ships. The slaughter continued for another two minutes before the surviving ten cruisers and forty-two frigates activated their FTL drives.

"Spread the Masamunes, Polecats, and Fiscal Shrikes throughout the fleet. Do we have Anderson's recon yet?" Williams ordered as his officers began to relay his orders.

"No sir, Anderson's drones won't reach that area for another twenty minutes."

"Admiral! Anderson's drones are detecting projectiles. Their using the sun to slingshot them at higher velocities at Astro control. SteaCruRon 16 and SteaBatCruRon 8 are vectoring in to intercept."

He nodded, focusing more on his repeater. With those Stealth Squadrons out of the picture he was going to have to reinforce them with some of the other stealth squadrons nearby, otherwise both squadrons were going to be wiped out if they were blindsided. Stealth ships didn't have gravitic shielding, and would thus be more vulnerable to enemy fire than his standard ships. "Reroute SteaDesRon 24 and 27 as well as SteaFrigRon 32 to cover them. Then have CLACRon 4 and DreadRon 3 take position at Astro Control."

"Sir! There's a civilian transponder squawking at Sector 13!"

"Who the hell is it?" Williams growled. All Civilian ships should have left four days ago. Whoever had stayed in the system was going to throw the system's defenses out of whack. He did not want to lose ships covering a civvy that shouldn't have even been there.

**-TED-**

"Captain Lentinus there's a lone dreadnought making itself known. Its twice the size of any of the larger dreadnoughts in the fleets sir!"

The captain frowned as he looked over, noticing that the dreadnought in question did indeed out mass the other vessels by quite the margin. "Alright, our squadron will head in and take it out in the next run. Something this massive must be the command ship," he mused. After all it had only made its presence known after their first strikes. Sure they lost a lot of good men feeling out the enemy, but now they could focus their attention on the ships that were the most dangerous, like those _Destiny Ascension_ sized dreadnoughts.

**-TED-**

_HMAMC Lonely Mountain_'s bridge was a hive of activity. The merchantman was twice the size of any of the dreadnoughts in the system and was pitifully slow in comparison. Sure she had military grade impellers, and could thus pull an acceleration rate of 600 gravities, nearly twice that of other merchantman of similar size, but she was an eggshell in space. Any engagement with the enemy would tear her vulnerable hull apart, not that Penelope Cruz cared about that.

True she was currently disobeying her orders to patrol the Maya Sector, but when she had heard of the events developing around Shanxi, and of her own personal loss in that system, she was not going to sit idly by while an ally was attacked. And by God as her witness she was going to make sure that the bastards that killed her baby brother were going to pay!

"Ma'am CIC is detecting gravity ripples heading towards our position. ETA six minutes," Lionel Montoya, her Executive Officer, stated from his own command chair. The gravity ripples were something her men had noticed after watching the first few moments of the battle and it allowed them to track the enemy with accuracy. From what she knew, the enemy used dark energy to tunnel through n-space at faster than light speeds, this would result in a blue shift of energy when entering and leaving FTL, but the tunneling effect left a gravitic wake that her astrogation officer had discovered.

"Alright pop the hatches, start rolling the pods and prep the Dwarves for battle," she said to her crew as they responded with a flurry of activity. Whoever had named _Lonely Mountain_ had been a fan of prediaspora literature and had named most of the hulls he had built after notable places in a certain literary world. What that man probably hadn't expected was that someone, namely Penelope, would catch on to his naming scheme and would thus name her parasite ships in the same fashion.

Easily replaced plastic covers burst from the merchantman revealing the devastating weaponry hidden underneath. While her armor was pathetic, the _Lonely Mountain's _energy fire was equal to that of a superdreadnought. Anything that got within her range was going to know that she meant business. Her massive stores of missile pods gave her a devastating punch but her lack of telemetry links prevented the _Lonely Mountain _from being able to launch more birds than any superdreadnought could have hoped to carry in a single salvo.

"Do we have an estimation of where their exit point is?"

"Aye ma'am," the tac officer said as he started to train his guns in the most likely exit points. Since that first battle at the Mass relay these Turians hadn't allowed the navy to utilize their most deadly tactic. Missile swarms were going to become largely useless in this battle, since it was more a fight of energy weapons than anything else.

"Ready the Crippler," Penelope ordered.

**-TED-**

"We're coming up on the dreadnought now sir. Thirty seconds until engagement range."

"Good have the squadron converge on multiple vectors. We don't want that thing to," what he had to say next was never heard as a six hundred meter wide cone of condensed gravity ripped through n-space, piercing his ship and clipping the wings off of two others, their FTL velocities causing those ships to disintegrate. The remaining ships of his squadron dropped out of FTL only to be met with hundreds of Dazzlers and Dragon's Teeth. Disoriented and unable to accurately lock on to threats they were unable to protect themselves from the wave of missiles and graser torpedoes that tore into their flanks. What survived the holocaust of destruction was picked apart by the fourteen parasite LACs that launched from the _Lonely Mountain's_ docking bays.

**-TED-**

He had thought that they'd been too late to save that stupid civvy when those Turian cruisers converged on it. Imagine his surprise when the merchantman blew the entire squadron apart. Admiral Williams sat back as three other merchantmen followed through the same process, squawking their transponders to suck in enemy forces and then annihilating them. What were Manticoran Trojan ships doing here?

"Admiral receiving a hail from the first Trojan," his com officer stated and he nodded accepting the transmission.

"Captain Penelope Cruz and Task Force 136 reporting for action sir," a bronze skin woman said. He frowned as he looked at her. He recalled that Captain Shepard had a young com officer named Jason Cruz on her ship, a relative perhaps?

"Well captain I think your crews gave me quite a start," he said as his ship bucked from another attack. "Rendezvous your ships with SteaCruRon 17 through 20. Keep up the tactics you've been employing," he stated to the woman.

"Aye sir, I'm also sending you tactical data that might prove useful. Cruz out," she said before turning off her end.

"Sir I'm receiving data from the _Lonely Mountain_, it's a way to track these bastards while they're in FTL!"

Well that definitely was going to soften whatever court marshal Penelope was going to face later. "Alright, send that information to the rest of the fleet. Let's see if we can set up a few ambushes ourselves."

**-TED-**

Bellona was quiet as she listened to the reports. There were reports of entire squadrons of cruisers being wiped out in combat, hundreds of her people were dying left and right. So far they'd managed to take out a couple hundred of the small corvette sized ships, and seven of the smaller dreadnoughts. Still this battle of attrition was not going well for the Turian military.

Somehow these aliens had discovered a way to track their navy while they were FTL. She hadn't even heard of a race that could do that. Still the bulk of the navy was intact and they were just about to launch their biggest strike of the battle, they were going to go for the prize, the planet itself.

Six dreadnoughts and several hundred frigates, cruisers, battleships and thousands of fighters were going to launch themselves at the biggest enemy fleet. While the two fleets engaged each other, the troop drop ships would land on the planet and take control of vital areas. If they acted quickly enough, perhaps they could acquire the head of state and use that person to force the fleets to stand down.

If this gamble failed, the Turian navy was going to retreat and request the aid of the Salarians and Asari. Hopefully with those two navies joining in they would be able to take down this enemy.

"Commodore, Fleet Commander Scipio has given the order. The Assault Fleet will launch."

She nodded as she listened to her com officer. Her division would be taking part of the assault and she prayed to the spirit of _Invictus_ to lead them to victory. "Weapons to full power, Inform the fighter squadrons to form a screen around the dreadnoughts. We need to soak up the enemy missile fire as we engage as close as possible." That was the plan. They would jump within the enemy formation, the distance between the enemy's ships would allow them to jump in close and assault them with energy fire, hopefully the close quarters knife fighting would buy the ground troops enough time to reach the surface.

The fleet moved into position before they activated their FTL drives, a massive blue shift of energy as they tunneled their way to Shanxi.

**-TED-**

The fleet burst into orbit of Shanxi in a massive shift of blue energy. The warships were met with missiles and energy beams from the Torch Navy's Home Fleet. Fighters met LACs in head to head combat, destroyers and cruisers on both sides exploding as energy pierced them. The smaller dreadnoughts squaring away against their massive counterparts as they pounded at each other with every weapon on hand.

The thousand troop ships made their attempt at landing on the planet's surface protected by a fairly robust fighter screen. Planetary gun emplacements and orbital weapons platforms opened fire, downing fighters and dropships left and right. Three hundred and fifty troopships managed to land on the surface of Shanxi, their troops spilling out as they made their way into the cities, prepared to occupy them. If they could claim the planet than the battle was won and the sacrifice of the fleet fighting to the death above them would have been worth it.

**-TED-**

Her Mousety Queen Berry I of the House of Zilwicki was trapped in the hospital that housed the unborn embryo of her great grandson. The fetuses had been bathed with eezo from one of the ships exploding above the city and the staff at the birthing clinic fought tooth and nail to keep their charges from dying. Shala'Raan and Daro'Xen were proving themselves to be godsends, helping the hospital staff correct the genetic anomalies thanks to the Quarians experience with fetal exposure to Element Zero.

Her bodyguards tried to get the Queen to evacuate, but she refused. She would not leave the next generation of Torch's citizenry vulnerable in their iron wombs. She would not leave the thousands of unborn children this facility housed to their fate, nor would she leave the doctors and nurses who were trying to save them unprotected. If this was going to cause headaches for her military so be it. She would not move.

**-TED-**

**Codex:**

**Armed Merchantmen: **As a counter to piracy in many of the underdeveloped star nations, the Trojan Merchantmen, or Armed Merchantmen, were developed to counter such threats with lethal accuracy. These vessels are either built to look like merchant vessels, or were retrofitted from merchant vessels into warships in order to lure unsuspecting pirates within their weapons range.

**Crippler**: With a range of a million kilometers, the Crippler is one of the most devastating weapons in humanity's arsenal. Utilizing Grav-lance technology, a Crippler pierces the impeller band of a vessel, preferably a civilian craft, and overloads the bands causing emergency shutdown. Commonly utilized by Spider-drive and Armed Merchantmen, the Crippler remains one of the most devastating FTL weapons utilized by humanity.

**Fiscal Shrike: **The Successor to the Manticoran Shrike-class LAC (Light Attack Craft), the Fiscal Shrike is an anti-capital ship assault platform. Additionally, the Fiscal Shrikes have the carrying capacity of five missile pods, vastly increasing the missile combat capability of LAC Squadrons.

**Iron Wombs:** Developed by the planet of Beowulf, and oddly unused by its citizens, the Iron Wombs allow a fetus to mature outside a mother's womb. This allowed women who were either very busy, in the military, or were otherwise incapable of bearing children to have children. Tubing a child also allows for the correction of genetic birth defects and the physicians can even halt the growth of the embryo until such a time that the parents wish to birth it. In advanced human societies there is no social stigma attached to those who had either natural or tubed birth.

**Masamune: **The Successor to the Grayson Katana-class LAC (Light Attack Craft), the Masamune specializes in LAC to LAC combat. Thereby making them a credible threat to any enemy LAC Squadron.

**Polecat:** The Successor to the Manticore Ferret-class LAC (Light Attack Craft), the Polecat serve as support squadrons to Fiscal Shrike attack forces. Developed to focus on missile defense, the Polecats have also been utilized to increase Fleet defense in most LAC doctrines.

**Torch Squadron designations: **Torch's Royal Navy splits their vessels into several squadrons based on type of vessel. Most designations begin with class of vessel and the squadron number. Instead of continuously stating Stealth Cruiser Squadron 24, Torch Naval Personnel instead use shorthand to designate the 24th Stealth Cruiser Squadron as simply SteaCruRon 24.

**You know since I don't have any ME supplementary material other than some of the codex entries I've read, they never do state how large the Turian navy is, just that it is primarily made up of cruisers. True the Quarians have the largest fleet in the galaxy, but the Turians have the largest military, what with 20% of their population serving in the military at any given moment.**


	6. Honor Harrington Reproduction Center

**Disclaimer: I do not own Mass Effect nor Honorverse. I am merely throwing the two worlds together. Any original characters, however, are mine.**

**Alrighty folks I've gotten the puppy house-trained…ish. So she's not as big a problem nowadays. And sorry for the delay, but Lord of Uzu has been on my mind for a while, so once I started writing it…kind of hard to stop. I'm working on chapter five here, and chapter two there at the same time.**

* * *

**Chapter 5: Battle of Honor Harrington Memorial Reproduction Center**

"So tell me what we've got," Zaeed Massani said as he looked over the crowd that had formed in the lobby of the clinic. There had to be around two hundred people or so here.

"Well we have mostly small arms, the police forces managed to get their assault gear here. We've got three skimmers and seventeen air cars. Seven Pulse Rifles, sixteen Flachette guns, five tribarrels, three plasma carbines, and two gravitic launchers. We have ten Viper missiles for the launchers," Police Chief Arnold King said to the Queen's bodyguard. King and his police forces had opted to focus on defending the Queen and had therefore relocated from their precinct in order to better protect their monarch, bringing whatever weaponry they could.

"Gravitic launchers you say? That'll shut any ole bitch up," Zaeed mused. He was a little surprised that there even where any Gravitic launchers in the area. Those were usually weapons used by special forces, why on earth would civilians have a hold of them? Not that he was complaining at the moment. "So what the hell are they doing in the garage?" he'd seen a flurry of activity happening over there.

"Well this kid named Greg is trying to see if he can rig us a communicator, we've got a few people with technical skills helping him. With the damn birds taking out our com satellites contacting the military has been difficult," Chief King said as they walked towards the center of the lobby, where everyone had put down whatever weapons they had and created a makeshift armory. The man was quite intimidating, fairly tall and broad shouldered, he reminded Zaeed of one of Old Terra's Vikings, which was probably fairly accurate as the man was obviously of Scrag decent.

"And over there on the left?"

"Karin Chakwas, one of the nurses, is setting up a makeshift infirmary," the police chief said.

"Good we're gonna need it," he said as he looked over the weapons. "I see a lot of shitty guns," he said with a frown. There were a lot of civilian weaponry here, light pulsers, disrupters, needle guns, even some goddamn antiques. There had to be a handful of those Creative Anachronism people running about, some of these guns were archaic! Still a fucking hand cannon would work well as a distraction he supposed. There were also a lot of vibroblades and forceblades. At least everyone here would have a weapon for hand to hand combat.

"Alright you lot, does anyone here have any goddamn experience?" because he really didn't want to be stuck leading a bunch of civvies against a military force.

/Me and My hunters will participate/ Gofuor, a Medusan Shaman, communicated. The tri-symmetrical male was leading a group of warriors who looked like they had been applying their tribal paints. /We have our own rifles/.

Zaeed could not help the grin that formed on his face. Fucking Stilties. The sort of people he never wanted to cross. Bastards could slit your throat before you even knew they were there. And that was before giving the damn buggers tactical cloaks. Add in the Stilty rifle with a range of 6000 meters made the Medusans the best forces for sniping in the whole goddamn Alliance. "Alright I want your men in the neighboring buildings and scouting, take out enemy commanders and report their movements to us."

"I've got about six hundred police personnel," the chief said. "We've set up roadblocks all around the area. We'll serve as the primary line of defense."

"Good..take the gravitic launchers with you. And the schematics on your skimmers?"

"Lightly armored, they pack a punch but they're eggshells."

"Shit. If only we had some sting ships," he groused as he looked over what was left. "That leaves me with the civvies huh. Well we'll protect the Queen as best we can. I'll have them protect the building as much as we can. Set up some patrols. Where are we on defensive gear?"

"I managed to clean out all our armor. It's mostly light, resistant to light pulsers and slugs. Nothing like what the marines have."

Zaeed ran a hand over his face. Shit. So he was going to have subpar weaponry, subpar armor, shitty vehicles, and no back up. They were fucking doomed. "We just need to hold out until we can get into contact with the army. If we could contact Lara's Own for back up, we'll be set. I want you to put that engineer's job as the main priority. Get that communicator working." This would be easier if the Queen would relocate, but he could understand why she was remaining. If she left, then it was very likely that the Reproduction Center would be overrun, and with it her unborn great grandchild. And nobody, not even Hugh Zilwicki himself, was going to make the Queen budge when one of her grandchildren were in danger. Hell, he expected her to pick up a gun herse….wait a flachette gun was missing.

**-TED-**

Several hours later, Spurius Serapio was on a building overlooking the hospital that was providing the most resistance to their taking of the city. General Arterius wanted this city captured as quickly as possible, considering that it was one of the three largest cities on the planet. It seemed that there might be a VIP trapped down in the hospital, because that was the only explanation that Spurius could see as to why the civilians were fighting so hard.

"This is Alpha Team to Bravo Team. We're in position." Spurius said as he and his team got into position, readying their sniper rifles. Their job was to take out as many of the defenders in the hospital itself while General Arterius' men broke through the police barricades.

"Roger that Alpha Team, We're in position as well. We'll start on the right si…urgk" and then the transmission cut out.

"Bravo Team? Bravo Leader report? Bravo One? Bravo Three?" Spurius called into the radio, receiving only stony silence in return. He was about to signal to his team when a rope suddenly wrapped around his neck, jerking him back. He only briefly glimpsed a three armed creature before he was pushed off of the building joining the other five hanging Turians.

/Niphol to Hunt Leader. Sniper Team dealt with. Providing assistance to Barricades/ Niphol sent to his Shaman before he and his team of Medusan Snipers took to their positions, ready to aid the harried police forces.

**-TED-**

"Incoming!" Arnold King shouted as the broad shouldered male dived for cover, barely escaping the missile blast from the thrice be cursed gunships. He took aim with his light pulser, and it whined several times as the millimeter darts shot out, piercing a Turian's shields before the second and third shots blew the alien's arm off. "Somebody take that damn gunship out!"

"Roger that Chief," one of his female officers said, shouldering the gravitic launcher. The woman was just as blond as her commanding officer, and one of the few police officers capable of actually lifting the damn thing, let alone shouldering it. She took aim at the hovering gunship and let loose one of their precious few Viper Missiles. The gravitic missile flew off at near the speed of light, slamming into the gunship and causing the vessel to crash into the Turians below it. "Got the sucker."

"Valerie look out!" Arnold shouted as one of the Turians peaked from cover to try and get a shot at her, but the Turian's head exploded in mass of blue goo.

"Looks like the Medusans finally got rid of those snipers," Valerie said as she slipped back into cover, rearming her gravitic launcher with another Viper missile.

"Hell yeah, now let's show these bastards why you shouldn't mess with the Torchese. For the Great Kahja!" Arnold bellowed, his cry repeated by his police forces as they intensified their defense of the barricades.

"Incoming Tank!"

"Terry!"

"On it Boss!" A redheaded male said as he angled for a shot with his plasma carbine. The heavy support weapon was mounted on a tripod near the center of the barricade giving it a large coverage area. The smaller male took careful aim with the weapon before a high speed glob of superheated plasma was shot from his carbine, slamming into the middle of the tank and melting straight through, causing the hovering vehicle to list before it slammed into the side of a building. "Fuck yeah take that!"

"Sir, several gunships have broken through the west barricade. They're making their way to the Reproduction Center."

Arnold growled as he reloaded his pulser. "Tell Zaeed he's got company, and send a Skimmer and four of the air cars to help."

"Sir, We're also running low on power cells for the plasma cannon," Terry Malcolm said. They'd had to stop utilizing it as an anti-infantry weapons placement awhile ago when their ammunition began to run low, now reserving it only for anti tank weaponry.

"Damn," Arnold grumbled. It looked like the Turians were finally going to be able to overcome the barricades. "Tell him we'll hold out as long as we can, but if we can't hold them here, we'll retreat and make our stand in the courtyard."

**-TED-**

Karin frowned as a child was put on the surgery bed before her. The boy was only ten years old, too young to even have started prolong treatment, and had been shot several times as he attempted to make his way to the Reproduction center, having been found by one of the defenders. Already the prognosis wasn't going to be good. She was going to have to amputate the leg. Medigel would have to do for the moment, since the Reproduction Center didn't have any of the Regen machines needed to regrow the limb, and something like that took too much time anyway.

True she was just a nurse, but she had been taking courses to receive her medical degree, and that happened to include surgery. True she was no neurosurgeon, but she could deal with something as simple as amputating limbs, and since the more skilled doctors she had managed to round up were busy with the more life threatening cases, she was stuck doing what she could with her limited skills.

She stepped back, the boy now had one less leg, but he was stabilized, and as one of the nurses move him to one of the few empty beds, another body was put in front of her. She sterilized her arms before leaning into the medical stasis field and began the arduous task of saving another life.

**-TED-**

"Holy shit holy shit holy shit holy shit,"

"Keep her steady!"

"I'm trying you assholes!" Mark Stanford shouted as he continued his litany of holy shits. The aircab driver had offered his services to fly one of the aircars, and was now cursing his patriotism. His vehicle ducked and weaved, trying to get out of the firing range of the gunship that was chasing his ass. He had three passengers, all carrying light pulsers that they fired at the gunship. Aircars weren't meant to be used militarily, but they had no choice. It was either put the civilian vehicles on the line, or lose the three skimmers they had.

At least pulsers, even light ones, were moderately effective against a gunship. Enough rounds in the right place would shoot it down but that was only if they could get past that damn kinetic shield. Only the Gravitic Launchers could shoot the enemy aircraft out of the sky with a single shot, and they only had a handful of missiles. Most of the aerial battle revolved around slashing attacks from the skimmers, and for that they needed to use aircars like the one he was driving as a distraction.

"Holy shit we made it! Fuck guys this is going to be a rough turn!" he screamed to his gunners as the agile aircar screamed around a corner, anti-grav plates protesting at their abuse as he rolled the aircar out of the firing range of the waiting skimmer. The skimmer opened fire with its pulser cannons. The cannons could fire up to 2000 milimeter pulse darts a second, not that that tremendous rate of fire was needed as after only half a second the gunship exploded.

**-TED-**

"They're repelling down the sides!" One of the civvies yelled as the whines of pulsers filled the air. Zaeed cursed as he shouldered Jessie and let the bloody bitch do her job. The old pulse rifle fired with deadly accuracy, taking out three of the repelling turians.

"Toss the fucking molotovs!" Zaeed shouted, and several of the civilians followed his orders, tossing Molotov cocktails and other improvised incendiaries at the advancing Turians. They were well and truly fucked, and he was stuck trying to keep the building defended. Currently they were fighting in the courtyard, trying to keep the Turians from entering the building and butchering the innocents within.

"Where are those damn skimmers?" Zaeed shouted into his radio.

"Skimmer 2 is down three blocks out. Skimmer 3 is drawing heavy fire. Skimmer 1 is on its way, ETA six minutes," reported Sara Lionel; the woman in charge of their communications.

"Shit," he said as he ducked under cover. He popped up for a quick shot, taking a Turian between the eyes. Good ol' Jessie always knew where to hit them. Blood thirsty bitch. "Where is the goddamn Queen?"

"She's in room 32B on the third floor. They're working on the last batch of fetuses. Shala'Raan estimates another thirty minutes before they can be evacuated safely," the aging police dispatcher reported.

"Status on the communicator?" Zaeed said as he blew apart two more Turians, drawing attention from the hovering gunship.

"Gregory Adams has it operational, he's sending the- kshhhh"

"Damn, they're jamming our radios," he muttered. Shit, and his people were taking heavy losses. "Alright everyone fall back to the lobby!"

**-TED-**

"Hello, this is Gregory Adams can anyone hear me?" the young man asked into the improvised long range communicator that he'd built.

"This is a secure channel meant for military purposes," A curt voice said on the other end of the line.

"Please, you have to send aid. We're trapped at the Honor Harrington Memorial Reproduction Center, suffering heavy losses. The police barricades are barely holding. You need to send help."

"Have the police forces evacuate the civilians into the shelters and get off this line," the voice said again.

"Look you don't understand. I.." oh god they weren't going to send help. Wait wasn't there a code or something he was supposed to say? He remembered that the Queen's bodyguard had told him to use it. "This is a Priority Zero message. The Queen is at Honor Harrington Memorial Reproduction Center and needs evac. She's surrounded, if you don't send anyone she's going to die!"

A female voice then came onto the line. "Fuck? The Queen is there? Who told you about Priority Zero?"

"Zaeed Massani," the young engineer responded.

"Damn it. Alright little boy, we'll be right there. ETA fourteen minutes. Can you guys last that long?"

"I..I dunno they're already in the courtyard. I don't know how long we can keep them out."

"Amazon Flight get back into position! Do not break formation!" the original voice said again, clearly angered.

"Fuck you! Amazon Flight form up on me. Lara's Own! To the Queen!" the female voice responded.

"This is Valkyrie Flight responding to Priority Zero. ETA fourteen minutes," a male this time voiced.

"Amazon 6th Armored Battalion responding to Priority Zero. ETA ten minutes," another female voice stated, this one cold and dispassionate.

"This is Shanxi Sixth Regiment. Responding to Priority Zero. ETA twenty minutes."

Greg sat back, hope blossoming in his chest. They had to last just ten minutes, if they could last that long then at least somebody would be here. He had to tell the other defenders! He turned to the short-ranged radio only to hear static. Damn it. How was he to tell the other's that help was coming if there was no way to communicate? The others that had been helping him had gone to the rough in order to help the people fighting in the courtyard.

He almost didn't see the very last message, unlike the others this was a text response. The words were very simple, and it didn't provided an ETA, but the origin and the statement itself made that blossoming hope a raging inferno, because if anyone was going to be able to help these people were.

The origin of the message was the Iron Valley. The message was only three words long: We Are Coming.

**-TED-**

* * *

**Codex:**

**Aircar: **An vehicle with anti-gravity plates attached along the bottom and sides of the craft that allow easy movement. It is the most common form of transportation on the better developed worlds inhabited by humans.

**Amazons:** Originally a group of twelve or so female bodyguards led by Thandi Palane. Today, they are an all female unit within Liara's Own made up entirely of the best female soldiers in the entire military. To meet the Amazons in battle is to court with death.

**Disruptor: **An ultrasonic weapon less destructive than a Pulser, but capable of dealing massive trauma. Disruptors deal massive internal damage, capable of inflicting horrendous damage to an enemy's nerve system, and is more than capable of bypassing armor.

**Flachette Gun:** The modern equivalent of the shotgun. The Flachette gun's fire can be adjusted by the muzzle choke, allowing tighter or more dispersed fire. Flachette guns are primarily used during boarding actions due to the less likelihood of damaging the vessel by using them. For rapid fire action, Flachette guns can come in a tribarrel configuration.

**Force Blade:** Similar to the Vibroblade, the Forceblade is a melee weapon. Unlike the Vibroblade, the Forceblade is an energy weapon that emits a loud whine when in use.

**Gravitic Launcher: **Using the same principles used in missile pods. The Gravitic Launcher is a tripod mounted mass driver that allows soldiers to field surface to air missiles, capable of launching said missiles at near the speed of light thereby preventing an enemy vehicle from being able to dodge it.

**Honor Harrington Memorial Reproduction Center: **Founded by Faith Harrington, the Honor Harrington Memorial Reproduction Center is one of Shanxi's premier facilities for the birthing of human children. By utilizing iron wombs, this facilities oversees the birthing and development of human fetuses.

**M46A3 Pulse Rifle: **The shoulder arm variant of the pulser that is utilized by the Kingdom of Torch. Pulse Rifles are capable of firing 4.7 mm darts. Usually used by military personnel, the Kingdom of Torch's gun laws do allow civilians to purchase them.

**Medusan Sniper Team: **Due to their skill in camouflage and stealth, Medusans are among the galaxy's greatest scouts. Their somewhat primitive rifles have tremendous range and thus makes the Medusans Snipers one of the more dangerous military forces in the galaxy. Thankfully, Medusa's somewhat limited space program prevents them from being a dominant force in the galaxy.

**Needle Gun: **A mass driver that fires needles instead of darts, the Needle Gun is a more precise and less destructive weapon usually utilized by outlaws and hired gunmen.

**Personal Armor: **Built by using Ballistic Cloths, Personal Armor can withstand light weapons fire. Personal Armor is also regularly utilized by the companions of treecats, whose claws are capable of piercing any other type of garment save for ballistic cloth.

**Plasma Carbine: **Usually utilized as a heavy support weapon, Plasma Carbines are capable of wiping out entire squads of enemy troops in a single volley, or if concentrated can be utilized as an anti-tank weapon.

**Pulser: **Small Mass drivers that utilize gravity rather than electro-magnetism to drive projectiles, the Darts, as the projectiles are called, are often fitted with explosive heads making these small handheld weapons quite deadly in combat.

**Scrag: **A derogatory term for descendants of a line of Swedish supersoldiers that attempted to take over the world during Earth's Final War. Scrags usually operate in packs, usually following a member known as a Kahja. Scrags usually tend to follow the most physically powerful member of the pack and tend to work as mercenaries. That all changed during the founding of Torch when a group of female Scrags became the core of the Queen's bodyguard detail, causing Torch to become a safe haven for one of the most looked down upon members of humanity.

**Skimmer:** A light aircraft that could carry ten people, Skimmers came equipped with Pulse cannons in the front of the craft and a pulse cannon turret situated at the top. Along the sides are weapon slots that allow the personnel within to fire outwards.

**Society for Creative Anachronism: **An organization formed in the core worlds of humanity that focuses on recreating ancient battles using authentic weapons of the time period, as such members of this society tend to have weapons that are several millennia out of date.

**Sting Ship:** An atmospheric combat vehicle that replaced the fighter jets of the past. Sting ships utilize heavy pulse cannons and are highly maneuverable, though they do not have the capability of entering space.

**Vibroblade: **The primary melee weapon of most marine personnel, the vibroblade has a cutting edge that is only a molecule wide, and vibrates at such intensities that it can inflict terrible wounds when active. The most common version of the vibroblade is the vibrobayonet usually affixed on pulse rifles.

**Viper 291 Surface To Air Missile: **A relatively small missile capable of utilizing an impeller wedge. The missile itself does not have a warhead, but instead acts much like a countermissle, ramming into the enemy vehicle in order to destroy it.

**-TED-**

* * *

**I swear, this chapter is mostly Codex entries!**

**So I noticed that I had to update this again twice, because 1, there were some typos and 2. ate some of my punctuation  
**


	7. The Reaction

**Disclaimer: I do not own Mass Effect nor Honorverse. I am merely throwing the two worlds together. Any original characters, however, are mine.**

**25,000 views. Wow thanks guys.**

**Shadowcub asked what the other races think of the battle of Shanxi, and so I've decided to oblige. Sorry guys no action this chapter.**

**Chapter 6: The Reaction**

"Councilor Tevos. Good of you to join us," a male salarian said as he was looking through data on his omni tool. "Must come quickly. Situation deteriorating. Must learn what Turians have done. Foolish. Very foolish."

Councilor Tevos could not help but look at the Salarian in confusion. She had left the Citadel and was currently at a secret facility of the STG, though she was somewhat surprised to see the Asari Second Fleet and an STG flotilla here. She suspected Matriarch Benezia and Matriarch Aethyta were somehow involved with the Second Fleet's placement here. "I can't be here for long. I'm just here for the formal debrief and then I must get back to the Citadel," she said to the Salarian as she was led farther into the space station.

"Very good. Will fill in on the way. Mass Relay 314 has a garden world. Habitable. Decent Ecosystem. Colonized by unknown race."

"A new race?" Tevos asked as they walked through the decks. She noticed the curious absence of any Turians as they walked, the people making up the station seemed to primarily consist of Salarians and Asari. This was getting very curious, where the two governments collaborating on something that even she the Councilor of the Asari didn't have high enough clearance to know? And why where the Turians being excluded?

"Yes yes. Fascinating creatures. Similar to Asari and Quarian. Has same number of digits as Asari and Batarian. Apparently uses base ten mathematics as well."

"Why hasn't the Council been briefed on this earlier?" she asked as they continued to walk. "And..I'm sorry but I don't think you've introduced yourself."

"Introductions can wait. Time is of essence. Already lives on the line. Must work quickly," the Salarian said as they finally reached the viewing deck where a ship seemed to be berthed. It was odd, cylindrical in shape and obviously damaged. It's hull blackened and cracked. It was of a design that Tevos had never seen, and considering that she lived in the Citadel, she was well versed in ship designs. As she suspected both Benezia and Aethyta were there, as well as several of the Dalatrasses.

'"Good. Good. Everyone here. Briefing can begin."

"What is this? I've never seen a ship like this before," one of the Dalatrasses said as they looked at the broken hull before them.

"Hermes class luxury liner. Found near Relay 314. Analysis suggest struck by asteroid. No lifepods found. Crew evacuated. Vessel left adrift. Found by STG team twenty years ago."

"And why are we finding out about this now?" Benezia asked as she looked at the Salarian male. "And who are you anyway?"

"Forgive me. Introductions first. Mordin Lokir. Director of STG. No survivors found. No need for Asari interpreter. Translated alien language 5 years ago. Information found to be troubling." Lokir said as he tapped a few buttons on his omni tool and transferred the data to the screen displaying the vessel. Information readouts spread across the large sheet of glass.

"Information from vessel's medical bay suggests at least two different races working in conjunction. Much like Salarian and Asari. Third species seems to be domesticated animal," he said as he tapped through the medical read outs displaying three different species. "First is designated Treecat. Homeworld Sphinx. Manticore binary system. Due to size, probably kept as pets," He pulled up the data and astrological charts of the Manticore system. "Second designated Medusan. Homeworld Medusa. Basilisk system." He pulled up another chart showing the Basilisk system as well. "Final species designated Human. Homeworld Earth. Sol System."

"Such a variety of species," one of the Dalatrasses said as they looked at the three species. Two had six limbs, but utilized them in extremely different ways. One small and used them much like an insect would, but was mammalian and covered in fur, while the other was more insectoid and was tripedal. The humans physiology was more familiar. Bipedal, with head fur much like the Quarians, but resembling Asari and Batarian skeletal structures.

"These homeworlds are seven hundred light years apart," Aethyta said as she looked at the astrological charts. The distances between them were ridiculous. At least a five hundred light years from Sol to the Manticore System, and two hundred and ten from Manticore to Basilisk.

"And at least a thousand light years removed from us." Benezia said looking at the readouts.

"According to data in astrological charts. Humans have settled a region of space approximately fifteen hundred light years in diameter."

"That's…quite the empire," Aethyta said blinking. "I wouldn't want to mess with someone that had an empire that size."

"Lucky for STG. Passenger on craft seemed to be historian. Left behind a lot of information. Apparently humans have been in space since the formation of the Council."

"Amazing…so why haven't we made contact?" Tevos asked. Considering the size of the human empire, why had they not come into contact with this species before?

"The reason simple. Humans do not use Mass Effect technology."

"Preposterous!" One of the Dalatrasses said. Tevos could agree. It was ridiculous to think that a race could colonize a vast region of space without faster than light capability.

"Not preposterous. Study of Shanxi system shows Humans manipulate gravity for sublight propulsion. Theories and observations suggest humans utilize hyperspace for faster than light travel."

"Wait. Didn't the Salarians try to achieve the same thing?" Aethyta drawled as she looked at the Salarian.

"Yes. Proved too costly. Information on humans suggest no choice. The Beowulf colony developed technology following civil war on homeworld. Only recently discovered Mass Effect technology. Which brings us to."

"Relay 314," Tevos said then blinked. "You don't mean…they opened up the Relay and the Turians are attacking them?"

"Indeed. However Humanity will not be easily defeated. Information suggests unification never occurred. Only in last two hundred years has humanity began to unify. Also. Humans appear very militant. While not as militant as Turians, navies dwarf our own in sheer size."

"And how would you know this?" Benezia asked.

"Sensor information extracted from alien vessel. Suggests that developed planetary systems have high naval presence. Developed planetary systems have a defense force of at least a hundred dreadnoughts and ship classes higher than that."

"Goddess…a hundred dreadnoughts?" for just a single planetary system? That was more than all of the Citadel races.

"Indeed. Turians have begun assaulting human colony of Shanxi for at least sixteen hours now. Reports have shown chance of Turian victory are…problematic. Chance of combined victory should Humans retaliate against Citadel races are projected at six percent."

"We have to stop the Turians. Pay reparations," Benezia said as she began to pace. "With their military, they could easily settle in the Terminus systems."

"Astrological charts state at least six colonies in Terminus systems already."

"What? How did they get there?"

"Information unknown. Perhaps developed own version of Mass Relay."

"I told you we should have built our own," Aethyta said smugly as she looked at her former partner. "Now we're going to have to start training our Maidens in combat. They have us by the Quads if we don't start increasing our military presence now."

"Will send samples of Human weapons technology to Asari Republics. Weaponry subpar compared to Human Military, but more advanced than us. Have already helped develop new shielding technology."

"We will convene with the other Dalatrasses, but we'll have the Salarian Union begin developing a larger military presence as well," one of the Dalatrasses said as they moved out to their transports.

"Is it already too late?" Tevos asked.

"Probably. Possibility they are open to diplomacy. Will probably send a force to Citadel. First contact made with Quarians. So likely have information on Citadel's location already."

"Goddess…I'll try to get the other Councilors to come up with some reparations for them then." They'd have to. The Turians had made a mistake, one that would prove extremely costly to the Citadel. Damn the Quarians, with them handing over information about the Citadel Races this new race could easily strike at the heart of the Citadel Races and destroy the galactic government.

"The Asari Second Fleet will be moving in to break up the fighting. Hopefully we can get the Turians to back down and withdraw," Benezia said as both she and Aethyta left to board the _Destiny Ascension_'s sister ship the _Transcendent Glory._

**-TED-**

"And that's the situation in Shanxi. So far Admiral Williams is still keeping the 5th Fleet in reserve while primarily fighting with Torch's naval forces. There's a good chance that he'll call them in eventually, the enemy is already adapting to our defensive technology," Anton Cachat said to the host of dignitaries he was briefing. He was conducting a multi-star system conference call, and frankly he was glad that his facilities were top-notched. Even so, Old Terra's communications were still a little bit more on the fuzzy side than he would have liked.

"So Torch will not need additional aid. The question is however, what will we do in response to this blatant attack," Sasha Romanova mused. She was the current president of the Terran League.

"We should strike at the heart of their government. Teach them what happens when you strike against a giant," Gustav Andermani XIV said. The oriental-descended emperor of the Andermani Empire fully espousing an action that suited well with his nation's history of realpolitik. To attack the Andermani, was to give them full rights to conquer you.

"No that would be a bad idea. It would be a horrible way to introduce ourselves to the larger galactic community," King and Emperor Michael I of the Star Empire of Manticore said. The ebony skinned man was just as sharp as his predecessors when it came to navigating political quagmires. "We should send a strong force of arms. The 1st Fleet for sure, but we should also send a political delegation. I think we should send our best peace talker."

"Absolutely not!" Bernard Raoul Mayhew, the elderly Protector of Grayson, interjected. "I will not place my grand-nephew at the mercy of a bunch of genocidal aliens."

"If you haven't noticed, my wife might already be in their hands," Hugh Arai-Zilwicki Prince Consort of Torch stated heatedly. His wife was probably in the middle of the fight for her life and he couldn't be there, having been asked to stay behind on Torch while the Home Fleet fought over the skies of Shanxi. She had surprised him with her surprise visit to Shanxi, and had already gone through the Terminus before anyone had discovered her destination.

"It's not like he'll be there alone. He has his security detail, and let's not forget how useful having a treecat around is. They'll know the moment the area is unsafe and extract him," Rupert Coleson, President of the Republic of Haven added.

What followed was another hour of accusations, rebuttals, concessions, and debate before the council finally decided on a course of action. Throughout all of this Anton Cachat sat back and listened. The decision had been made, they would be sending the first fleet with their best peace talker, just like Michael had suggested. Honestly, he knew why they had to debate so much, having grown up around the aristocracy of Torch, but still it took an hour for them to decide on a decision that they had already agreed on. Still, it was all part of the game called politics.

**-TED-**

"So, they'll be sending my godson," Jack Harper mused as he smoked his cigarette. In ancient times the past time of smoking was considered dangerous for one's health. Nowadays with Regen and the cancer vaccines, he had nothing to fear by smoking.

"How are we on the data we received from the _Prometheus_?" he asked turning to Eva Core, one of his most trusted subordinates and his best information sleuth.

"Most of the data has been translated, thanks in part to the Quarian delegation. About twenty percent of it has been analyzed. The codex doesn't seem to have concrete information on deployment, but we do have the number of dreadnoughts each of the major players has. From information ascertained from the codex, we can conclude that the Turians are utilizing two thirds of their naval force on the assault on Shanxi."

He nodded as he sat back. Honestly, the information that they had given him had proved that it was literally impossible to infiltrate the other races. Sure by removing a few fingers and some surgery a human could easily pass for a Quarian, and Volus mechanical suits were easy to duplicate, but the more important races were impossible to infiltrate. Although Batarians could be infiltrated after heavy surgery, which he was quite happy to find out.

Unfortunately, The Asari were blue, but had touch telepathy which made infiltrating them impossible. The Turians and Salarians were far too physiologically different for anything other than a complete genetic rewrite for infiltration. And the Hanar and Elcor, yeah that would be completely and utterly impossible. Though he supposed he could have an agent modified into a Drell in order to infiltrate the Hanar.

"Begin infiltrating the Batarian Hegemony. Their practice of slavery worries me the most. It is likely we might be attacked by them next. I want stealth ships to begin mapping the alien territories, and I want to see if we can acquire access to the extranet the codex mentions," Jack Harper ordered.

Eva nodded as she listened to his orders, the facilitation of information being her primary role in their little triumvirate. "Is there any orders for Ben?" she asked. Ben Hislop was the commander of their combat forces, and therefore was usually out in the field rather than here in the Cerberus system at headquarters.

"I want him to make sure that his men are piloting Benjamin's shuttle and at least two men in the security detail. I don't want anything to happen to my godson," Jack added as he took a drag from his cigarette before exhaling the smoke. "Now that that matter is out of the way, what is happening on Shanxi?"

"Queen Berry is trapped in the Honor Harrington Memorial Reproduction Center. Her bodyguard Zaeed Massani has amassed a militia of policemen and civilians to protect her. Unfortunately the nearby military base and air base has been overrun. Their defensive line is crumbling and it is only a matter of time before the lines fall as the Turians begin to focus their combat forces on the inner city. Several of our agents in the city supplied them with two working gravitic launchers and ten Viper missiles. Luckily, a young engineer by the name of Gregory Adams managed to rig a communicator. As of fifteen minutes ago Valkyrie Flight, Amazon Flight, Amazon 6th Armored Battalion, and the Shanxi 6th Regiment responded to their calls for help. Likely by now they have secured her."

"And the Quarian delegates?"

"They elected to forego evacuation in order to assist the Queen. Apparently one of the Turian troop carriers exploded above the city and bathed the fetuses with Element Zero. If it were not for their aid, over four thousand embryos would have been terminated."

"Which would explain why she decided not to evacuate either," Jack mused as he thought about it. Queen Berry would definitely not have evacuated if she was going to leave her as yet unborn great grandchild in the hands of the Turians. By buying time and correcting the genetic damage, she could ensure that the embryos could be safely transported to their cold storage units hidden under the hospital. "Send a recommendation to the Torch Parliament to grant the Quarians access to some of our older military vessels on top of whatever else the Queen already had in the works," he paused for a second, "and flag Gregory Adams as a person of interest. He seems rather creative and we wouldn't want his talents to go to waste."

"Right away sir," she said as she updated her datapad with her new instructions and moved to make sure Jack's orders were relayed.

Jack nodded as she left his side, leaving him to contemplate what his next move would be as he gazed up at the blazing surface of Cerberus. He was one of the most dangerous men in the galaxy, and it was his duty to ferret out anything that could become a danger to humanity and snuff it out. The Audubon Ballroom had a lot of resources and personnel to implement any plan of action that he could formulate. Unfortunately, a plan of action that would ensure that all of humanity's enemies were appropriately dealt with remained illusive.

**-TED-**

**Codex:**

**Audubon Ballroom: **Created in 20th century Diaspora, the Audubon Ballroom is a terrorist organization that focuses primarily on ending the genetic slave trade. They have been well known to resort to kidnapping, assassination, and bombing anything that has a relationship with the genetic slave trade. After the formation of the Kingdom of Torch, the Ballroom began to serve as Torch's intelligence division, and after the Great War has continued to keep an eye out for any development of Mesan interests.

**Beowulf: **Earth's first daughter world, Beowulf is the forefront of genetic technology. Ruled by a Board of Directors, Beowulf's ruling class is primarily made up of the best and brightest of their scientific fields. This Star Nation also caused the collapse of the Solarian League when they seceded from the League in the early 20th Century Diaspora.

**Hermes Class Luxury Liner: **Developed by one of the more influential Cartels on Manticore, the Hermes Class Luxury Liner is one of the fastest civilian ships in the galaxy, capable of not only getting important dignitaries anywhere they needed to go quickly, but because of it's armament, safely as well.

**Protectorate of Grayson:** One of the older Colony Worlds. Grayson proved to be a death trap for the people attempting to colonize it. Due to the planet's heavy metal concentration, and the fact that the plants and animals had dextro dna, just living on Grayson was a massive hardship, one that the colonists had no choice but to endure. Since then, the colonists have risen from one of the poorest Star Nations to the third most powerful member of the Grand Alliance.

**Republic of Haven: **The Republic of Haven has had a long and rocky past. Once known as the glittering gem of the frontiers, the Republic fell to corruption and mismanagement and spent several centuries as a ravenous entity raping other planetary economies in order to subsidize itself. Thankfully the Republic has reformed since then and has quickly risen to be the second most powerful member of the Grand Alliance.

**-TED-**

**So thoughts people?**


	8. Counterstrike

**Disclaimer: I do not own Mass Effect nor Honorverse. I am merely throwing the two worlds together. Any original characters, however, are mine.**

**Sorry for the delay again folks. I guess we'll just have to say that I'm a slow writer. That and I'm starting work on an original piece…and all my research was compromised! Setting me back several weeks and killing my desire to write. Furthermore, we're having net problems and I can't write this fic without online references.**

**Chapter 7: Counterstrike**

"_Holy shit holy shit holy shit holy shit!"_

"Mark you still with me buddy?" Steve Cortez asked as he swerved his aircar around, the nimble craft dodging the fire of three gunships on its tail.

"_I'm not going to die so easy…holy shit holy shit. Get off my tail you bastards!"_

Steve chuckled, and then growled as he saw two more gunships flying towards him. "I'm going to have to get creative guys!" he shouted to his gunners, who were stark white and trembling in the back seat as he made the car barrel roll.

"We're gonna die!" the heavy set San Martino woman in the back seat shouted as she clutched at her seatbelt desperately.

"I'm gonna throw up, and then we're gonna die!" the Torchese man beside her sobbed as Steve pushed the aircar to its limits in death defying feats of aerial prowess.

He went into a steep dive, pulling up at the last moment and flying under an overpass before shooting up and veering to the left. The car protested his maneuvers, but was remarkably still holding together. Of the seventeen aircars that they had had, only his and Mark's remained functioning. For how long was a matter of time because both vehicles would not be able to continuously dodged the increasing number of Turian gunships that were swarming their broken defense lines.

"_Air car pilot this is Valkyrie 1. If you can get those bastards to Rodentia park, we'll take them out."_

"Roger that Valkyrie 1. On my way," Steve said as he banked sharply to the right and started to floor it. He weaved and rolled around the enemy fire attempting to take out his nimble little craft, but he wasn't going to go down, not without getting the enemy to where he needed them to be.

His tough little aircar screamed into the far more open area of the park with six turian gunships trailing after him, only for them to meet the fire of the six sting ships laying in wait. The sting ships' heavy pulser cannons tearing through the barriers and armor of the turian gunships like a hot knife through butter.

"Thanks Valkyrie 1. You saved my ass," Steve said as he let his battered aircar hover for the moment. He was going to land soon, the damaged old girl wouldn't be able to survive another sortie.

"_No problem….umm"_

"Steve. Steve Cortez."

"_Right, no problem Steve. Man you're one hell of a pilot. If we both survive this wanna get a drink?"_

Steven couldn't help but laugh a little at the man's statement. "Sure. And who should I be waiting for?"

"_Robert Doyle. Well…I'll be seeing ya Steve. Stay alive,"_ and with that last message the six sting ships moved into the city to take out as many of the enemy gunships as they could. Steve himself couldn't help but feel a little smug as he landed his aircar. Robert sounded like a pretty good guy, and hey if he was lucky maybe they'd do more than just have a few drinks.

**-TED-**

"Damn they just keep shooting, do they even have to reload?" Valerie shouted from behind the barricade, standing up when there was a lull in the firing to pop off a few shots with her pulser. The Turians had long since started to fire in a stagger formation, ensuring that the defenders were kept pinned down. To what end, Arnold and his police force didn't know.

"No but they're going to duck soon," Arnold said staring at his communicator, he was keeping in touch with Niphol, whose team of Medusans were moving from cover to cover trying to keep a head of the gunships that were attempting to hunt them down.

"Boss, think we should fall back or something?" Terry asked as he clutched at his carbine, hunkered down behind a barricade.

"Sorry folks but that ship came and went," Arnold admitted. "They've overrun the east and west barricades, we'd be mincemeat if we tried to head to the center right," he paused as he received another update from Niphol and he couldn't help but grin a bit. "Niphol's war party is going to lay cover fire for us. If we make a run for it we could reach the subway," and then the world exploded in blue light.

Terry was sent flying, his back smashing against the side of a building with a sickening crack. He only had a moment to scream before the barricade he had been hiding behind crushed him completely. Valerie had been sent skidding across the pavement, finally stopping in a crumpled heap, unconscious but alive. Arnold himself had been thrown backwards, ears ringing as he tried to stand up again.

He managed to push himself up to his knees when he spotted a lone turian stalking towards Valerie. The turian was cloaked in a blue energy field and dressed in black armor. It was noticeably smaller than the other turians that Arnold had encountered and killed over the last few hours. It flipped the blond woman onto her back and studied her for a few moments. Then to Arnold's horror he watched as the turian pulled out a handgun and shot three rounds into Valerie's skull.

With a bestial roar Arnold charged the turian. The turian, shocked, threw a blew energy ball that struck Arnold's chest. It burned, oh god it burned, but his body relied on the augmentations hidden in his genetic code to ensure that he got what he wanted done. His pain receptors deactivated, leaving the blond juggernaut free to ignore the mortal wound as he charged the turian. He grabbed the turian's arms and with strength only a person of the Mfecane system could match he pulled.

Bone and sinew ripped and tore, blue blood sprayed as the blond ripped the turian's arm completely off. Screaming the turian countered with another blue bolt right into Arnold's ruined chest, sending him flying with concussive force several feet away. The enraged scrag picked up a discarded forceblade and charged again, this time nimbly dodging another blue bolt sent his way before swinging at the turian. Arnold's attempt at slicing the turian in half wasn't fast enough as the turian managed to fire another blue bolt into Arnold's chest, killing him instantly.

The turian staggered, wound bleeding profusely. "This is Saren Arterius. I need med evac, immediately," the young Blackwatch agent said before he collapsed.

**-TED-**

"Sir I've got movement!" Aegidius stated as he looked at his HUD. They were trekking through one of the abandoned parks on the west side of the city, trying to bypass the enemy's defenses and strike at the hospital directly.

"Where lieutenant?" the red painted sergeant ordered.

"Uh. Inconclusive. Thirty meters in front and behind."

"Turn on your infrared," the sergeant ordered as his squad of turians followed his instructions. The squad easily falling into their battle formation, watching each other's backs.

"There's nothing back here." A white marked turian acting as rear guard said.

"Nothing up here either. Maybe you need to get your motion tracker fixed," a snide female up front added.

"I know what I'm reading. There's something moving out there and it isn't us." Aegidius responded, frantic. What the hell was out there?

"I've got confirmation. They're on my tracker as well, and closing." Sergeant Honoratus said, backing up Aegidius' claims.

"Twenty meters," Aegidius said and the turian squad halted their advance.

"Fifteen meters," now the squad started to crouch around the trees, finding cover wherever they could and forming a circle.

"Ten meters," the squad tensed up waiting for the attack.

"I can't see shit!" the surly turian from before said.

"Maybe they don't show up on infrared at all," Concordia, their green marked medic stated as she panned her rifle around, trying to get a bead on the things moving in the forest. Her flashlight attachment shined momentarily on a large black object, and she paused to look over it again. It had an elongated head, six black limbs and a deadly looking tail that ended in a blade attachment. From how still it was, she could tell that it was just a piece of art hidden among the trees. Strange as it was, she knew the batarians were known to put up terrifying objects like these in order to frighten any slaves attempting to escape, but why put something like this up in the middle of the park? With her focus on the strange statue in front of her, she did not notice the bladed tail slowly making its way down behind her, taking careful aim at her back. She only had a moment to scream when the tail pierced her flesh before she was hoisted up and into the canopy.

More black objects dropped down and started to attack the frightened turians. The turians opened fire, but in the darkness it was hard to spot the black buzz saws of death. Honoratus was pushed down to the ground, his arm held up to try and keep the black head of the creature from mauling him, while his chest cavity was being sliced apart by the six deadly limbs.

"They're coming out of the Spirits damned trees!"

The turians took aim and began shooting up at the dark forms that were crawling along the tree trunks, only to watch as they vanished from sight.

"Fuck they have active camo!"

"Motion trackers!"

"Sarge is down!"

"Where's Honoratus!"

"Fuck let's get the hell out of here!"

"Marines we are leaving!"

The four surviving turians tried to escape the slaughter, covering each other with fire from their rifles as they continued to move farther and farther away from the carnage. Aegidius was the last of the group as they fled, the dark forms chasing them. His mind was broken, his squad had been one of the best in his colony, and they'd been annihilated in a single ambush. He stopped as he noticed the three other marines standing still, he caught up and his eyes widened as he saw a much bigger armored form that was humanoid. It held a rifle in their direction. His eyes widened. "Game over man," he said before he and the rest of the survivors were blown apart.

One of the sleek dark forms crawled up the metal man's arm to dock at its shoulder. An amused human voice spoke "Hey little man, did you and your friends have fun hunting?" he received a bleek of amusement from the frightening visage on his shoulder. "Alright, Shanxi 2nd Armored Iron Valley Ranger division press forward. We're still half a click from the hospital. Keep moving boys!" and with that said the armored person activated his camouflage and disappeared into the trees.

**-TED-**

"Amazon 3 get this bitch off me!" Sasha Ramirez yelled into her com as her agile stingship continued to dodge the turian gunship on her tail. The redhead was the current leader of Amazon flight, the best female pilots that the Torch navy had to offer. True many in the past had thought that the existence of the Amazon units were extremely sexist, but it was a tradition that had started from the beginning of Torch, and only an Amazon could induct another into their prestigious ranks.

"Copy that Amazon leader," a cool dispassionate voice said as a stingship came up from above, slicing through the turian with its pulser cannons before flying through the burning wreckage. The stingship agilely righted itself and was lost to the chaos of the massive dogfight over Faxian, the largest city that was currently the scene of one of the biggest aerial battles in the history of the Torch military.

"_Valkyrie 1 to Amazon Leader."_

"Roger that Valkyrie 1. What's your sitrep." Sasha said as Amazon 2 and 3 took position at her sides.

"_Rescued the last two civ aircars. But they've got a lot of air support near the Hospital. It's a kill zone out there ma'am."_

"Roger that I'll divert Amazon Squadrons 2 and 3 to reinforce you. Don't get my girls killed."

"_Copy that ma'am."_

"Captain. A squadron of turian gunships is approaching."

"2 Take left, 3 take right. I've got dibs on the leader." Sasha said with a growl as she punched forward, increasing her stingships speed. She didn't get a chance to hit her targets because several strange craft managed to take them out. The vessels were odd, with a ridiculously small cockpit, powerful engines and a pulser turret manned by a human. Were those what she thought they were.

"_Amazon Leader this is Iron Valley flight. We're can we do some damage?"_ a male voice asked and she couldn't help but grin. They just got their hands on an entire flight of Treecat Clawships!

"Right boys, send three of your squadrons to beef up Valkyrie flight. Their providing cover for the Amazon 2nd Armored Division. The Shanxi sixth is holed up in the village square. Do you have anything that'll help get those lazy bastards moving again?"

"_Aye ma'am. In fact we can do better. Can you have Valkyrie flight give our Pinance's cover?"_

"Shit you've got Pinances!? Hell yeah. Send them straight to the clinic. The Queen needs all the help she can get."

"_Copy that Amazon Leader."_

"Did you hear that Valkyrie flight?"

"_Yes Ma'am. We'll cover the Pinances. Those turian bastards won't know what hit them."_

**-TED-**

"General Arterius we are losing the battle for the city," one of Desolas' commanders stated as he looked over the feeds.

Desolas scowled as he looked over the digital map of the city. They had almost completely taken the city when the opposition received heavy reinforcements. Already several of the alien's mechs were tearing through their lines. He was rather surprised at the sudden new offensive, but knew it had something to do with the heavy resistance his forces had found at one of the clinics.

"Can we get one of the frigates to fly down and provide covering fire?" he asked one of his commanders.

"No can do sir, the fleets are struggling just to stay a step ahead of these aliens. Admiral Scipio says he's successfully heavily damaged their command dreadnought, but the reinforcements for the fleet above the planet were torn to shreds. Apparently the enemy has several outer system missile pods that they kept in reserve."

"Damn," Desolas growled as he looked over the readouts. "Pull our forces back. There's no way we can keep this city now. Have them fall back, leave as many traps as you can," he said to the other.

"Sir are you saying to retreat?"

"No..a strategic withdrawal. Our forces are too scattered in the city to deal with the reinforcements. Have them consolidate our men in the industrial districts."

"Right away sir," he said as he turned away to begin giving orders into his headset.

"Sir," one of his other commanders spoke up. "Saren's been retrieved."

Desolas let out a breath at that. Good his baby brother was safe. "What's the damage?"

"The alien managed to completely tear off Saren's arm. The med team couldn't find it in time. One of the alien gunship squadrons was bearing down on their position. They were lucky to get Saren here."

"Luck had nothing to do with it. Alright so if we set barricades here and here," he said looking over the map again. "We should be able to hole ourselves up until reinforcements from the fleet can arrive." If only more of their dropships had made it through the enemy's defenses. He'd lost almost 70% of his forces in the mad dash to get onto the planet.

Still these aliens were quite tenacious. It was almost as bad as fighting the Krogan, but at least they'd manage to locate their homeworld. With it falling, the Hierarchy could hunt down and subjugate the colonies at their leisure, especially with the bulk of this race's military being destroyed over the planet.

**-TED-**

Lucianus snuck into the enemy's stronghold. His active camo was far more advanced than the rest of his unit, him being a blackwatch agent, and a Council Spectre. He'd been given this mission from Councilor Russus himself. The objective was to capture the leader of the alien society, and in failing that assassinate that person. He'd been able to sneak in during the battle of the courtyard, and had slipped unseen into the upper stories.

He kept his pistol out and crept along the passages. The defenders were trying their best to hold the building, but a lot of them were inexperienced. The only one that seemed to be really capable had been the man he had passed on his way in, that young man seemed to be the only military trained person here, the rest were civilians.

He stopped when he heard a snarling sound. What was that? Some sort of animal? He only had a moment to think on it when he was suddenly attacked by a cream furred creature. It struck at him, batting at his kinetic shields and attempting to attack his throat and eyes. He struggled with the surprisingly strong nine kilogram creature.

He managed to throw the creature down the hall, who surprisingly landed on its six feet before it started to make a beeline towards him again. He raised his gun to shoot the surprisingly fast creature when he hured a burping sound, his shields shattered completely as the kinetic strike knocked him off his feet. His active camo deactivated and he had only time to look at the barrel of a shotgun before it burped again and several disks ripped through his body tearing it apart.

The treecat stopped and stood up on hits hind legs glaring at the shotgun wielder. "Oh hush," Berry Zilwicki said as she looked over at Alexis. "He was going to shoot you. I wasn't just going to let him do that Alexis."

**-TED-**

**Codex Entries:**

**Pinance: **A surface to orbit drop ship. Pinances are responsible for rapid transit of large numbers of personal to and from human planets and spacecraft. Lightly armed, Pinances are also generally used as customs and security ships for space stations. Capable of housing up to 200 personnel, Pinances are also largely utilized by the human military to drop entire platoons of Alliance Marines on enemy planets as well as serving as highly formidable air support units.

**Rangers: **Originally started as a group of naturists and biologists, the Rangers were formed in order to protect the Treecats from poachers back when the Treecats weren't considered a sapient race. Over the years the Rangers evolved to become the premiere military units available to the People.

**Treecat Clawship: **Due to the Treecats highly developed sense of spatial awareness, a breed of aircraft was designed around treecats and their bonded personnel for use by the People. The highly versatile aircraft are piloted by the treecat, the person serving as their gunner and the vessel is capable of aerial feats unmatched by any other atmosphere restricted vehicle.

**Treecat Horror Suit:** Inspired by a 1st Century Diaspora film, Treecat Horror Suits are the Treecat equivalent of Humanity's Armor Suits. Due to the Treecat preference of melee combat, the Horror suits are equipped with forceblade claws on each of the six limbs, a highly dense but flexible armor coating, and a serated blade attached to the treecat's tail. Unfortunately, the small size of the suits requires the Horror suit to piggy back off of a human Armor Suit's energy supply in order to remain functional. There are reports of flying units being under development.


	9. Retaking Faxian

**Disclaimer: I do not own Mass Effect nor Honorverse. I am merely throwing the two worlds together. Any original characters, however, are mine.**

**You know reading Chapter 7 again made me cringe. I didn't realize how poorly I had written it. Still if I stop, go back and edit it now I'll never get anything done. Oh well. God damn I really made a lot of errors in that chapter, especially misspelling Pinnace. I mean that was just..argh!**

**Chapter 8: Retaking Faxian**

The six Iron Valley Pinnaces flew in a wedge formation as they made their way to their intended goal. Any Turian resistance that came across their way was either met by the squadrons of sting-ships escorting the large craft, or were torn apart by the Pinnaces powerful pulser cannons and missile launchers.

The six powerful ships continued to make their steady way through the ruins of Faxian. Their destination was the beleaguered reproduction center, and with them was nearly a thousand of the best Rangers that the Iron Valley Treecat colony had to offer.

**-TED-**

"Grenade!" Zaeed Massani shouted as he hurled a grenade at the entrenched Turian position at the other end of the hall. During the last fifteen minutes of fighting the defenders had been pushed from the courtyard and the lobby and were now duking it out on the lower floors. Zaeed himself was in the thick of it, fighting off the major push the Turians were making towards the elevators, the lifeline of the resistance.

There was a satisfying explosion as Turian body parts went flying and Zaeed took the chance to unload his pulse rifle into the Turians who were no longer under cover. With him were several civilians, one of which was a grizzled old woman, supposedly one of the few remaining original Torch slaves, who was blasting away at the approaching turians with every available weapon on hand.

"Gunship!" The elderly fighter called as she continued to pepper the enemy with shots from her flechette gun.

Zaeed grunted as he was given one of their makeshift rocket launchers that the Adams boy had jury rigged for them. It was primitive, chemical propelled, and it took more than one shot to take out a gunship, but it was all they had. Hell Zaeed didn't even want to know where the boy had managed to find the parts he'd needed to make even one of these things, not to mention the other twenty spread out throughout the fighters.

He shouldered the primitive rocket launcher and one of the other fighters loaded the two homemade rockets into the launcher. When the Gunship showed its goddamn face, he fired the two missiles right down the bloody thing's throat. He didn't wait to see if the missiles destroyed it, the damn fuckers tended to back off after being shot at, and shouldered Jessie again, letting the blood thirsty old bitch do her job.

"Sneakers!" the grandmotherly woman, Earnest X, shouted as her elderly eyes strained to keep track of the trio of active camo fighters that were trying to make their way to the defenders position during the lull in the fighting. The Turian's camo was good, but nowhere near as perfect as the stuff that the Manticorans, or heavens forbid the Rangers utilized.

"Molotovs!"

Several of the younger fighters stepped forward and threw the Molotov cocktails that they'd been building ever since the battle for the center had begun. The three turian agents were bathed in chemical induced fire before they were shot down by the weary defenders.

"Zaeed they've broken through the east wing staircase."

"Alright people get into the elevators, we're moving up a floor," Zaeed said as his fighters started to retreat to the elevators. They were steadily losing ground, and Zaeed didn't like this one bit. Sure they were supposed to have received reinforcements, and those reinforcements should be arriving any minute now, but what good would those people be if there was nobody left to reinforce.

**-TED-**

"Alright ladies you know the drill. We'll be hitting the Turian flank on the west side of the plaza. We've got to save the Sixth's privates." Latoya X said with a grin as her statement was received with a few chuckles. "I want our recon teams to strife directly for the Sixth. Try to draw a bit of their fire and reinforce the Sixth. The assault companies will hit the west side as hard as we can."

"Ma'am what about the Turian artillery?" one of her lieutenants asked.

"We've got a squadron of Claws at our back on this one ladies," Latoya said with a grin. "They'll pick out the heavy stuff, we get to take out the rest." Seeing the Claws in action was probably one of the most destructive things that Latoya had ever seen. It made her itch to either ride one…or ride the gunner of one.

"Hell yeah."

"Enough dawdling. Alright Amazons move out!"

**-TED-**

Alecto Mraz took careful aim from behind a battered aircar as he fired his pulse rifle at the entrenched Turian position. The Sixth was trapped in the plaza, having boldly, and admittedly, idiotically waltzed into an entrenched Turian position. The Sixth had lost an entire platoon before they had known what had hit them and were now trapped in a stalemate against the entrenched Turian position with no way out. They hadn't expected to come across Turian Artillery at this junction, and apparently they had unwittingly ambushed Turian reinforcements en route to the beleaguered civilian defenders. There was no way in hell the Sixth was going to let them continue.

The intended reinforcements for the Queen's defenders had found themselves engaged in battle all around Faxian. The Valkyries and Amazons trapped in the massive aerial battle overhead, though that seemed to be turning around now that entire wings of Treecat Clawships were pouring in from Iron Valley. Almost all of the aerial battle was taking place in the northern districts were the six pinnaces were making their way with an entire regiment of Treecat Rangers.

Hastily, Alecto ducked back behind cover cursing as he and his squad were being pinned down by Turian fire. The fire lessened as thirty-six recon-configured armored battle suits started to sprint through the plaza at speeds of sixty kilometers an hour. The highly acrobatic combat suits danced through incoming enemy fire and returned fire with their powerful pulser wrist mounts.

Even as these agile warriors distracted the enemy infantry, a squadron of twenty four Clawships screamed down into the plaza, peppering the Turian artillery with kinetic strikes before blasting their way out to rejoin their brethren fighting above Faxian.

Then to compound Alecto's stunned surprise another two platoons of armored suits, this time in battle configuration launched an assault on the Turian's western flank. Their heavier armor, gravitic riot shields, and plasma rifles dealing massive damage to the Turian forces and putting them further into disarray.

With a roar the soldiers of the Sixth charged into the fray, taking advantage of the Turian's confusion and their reinforcements to push the Turians from the plaza. Alecto himself charged forward, he and his squad charging into the fray with pulser rifles firing. Unlike civilian and Marine pulsers, Army military grade darts had the tendency to explode once it made contact, allowing the Sixth to kill a Turian in a two shots where a civilian would have to use four. Once sure the area was cleared he started to make for the rest of the Regiment, until a powerful fist grabbed the back of his uniform and hoisted him up.

Shocked he looked up at the armored Amazon that had picked him up, who had pointedly tossed a rock at the aircar he was going to move near, and he watched as the entire thing exploded. The Turians had left behind boobytraps! He gulped. "Umm..thanks."

"Don't mention it short stuff." Was a gruff feminine reply. He would have said something about how he wasn't short, but this was an Amazon! They were the ladies that nobody messed with, and there was a high chance that he was indeed shorter than the powerful woman holding him up.

He gave the woman a weak smile as he was set down and watched in awe as she moved on. Hell even Shanxi's armored battalions couldn't match the almost feline grace these ladies seemed to have, and they used the same suits! These Amazons were something else.

**-TED-**

Balin'Reager was a Migrant Marine and damn proud of it. Sure he couldn't take a lot of hits without causing his own death, but that just made he and his fellow marines all the deadlier for it. He was currently crouched down amongst a few of the human civilians as they desperately attempted to stem the tide of Turian forces encroaching on their position.

Initially, Balin'Reager had just been part of the security detail sent along with Admirals Daro'Xen and Shaala'Raan. To be honest the current crop of Admirals were very young for their position, Daro'Xen herself having just returned from her pilgrimage, but they were good people. Although, judging from the actions the two women had done to make sure that the children of these humans survived, they were more than good people. They were Admirals that Balin'Reager was proud to defend.

"Enemy drones. Shoot for the command node in the center," Balin'Reager ordered as he aimed his assault rifle at the incoming spheres the Turian techs had launched. There were several patterns to Turian attacks, and he was rather amazed at how quickly the humans were adapting to them. Instead of ducking into cover, the humans fired a volley of disrupter fire, and those weapons Balin'Reager was eager to bring back to the Fleet. Not only did they cause massive amounts of damage, but being a sonic weapon they bypassed armor and kinetic shields to deal direct damage.

"Balin'Reager, Zaeed's ordered a retreat to the third floor. They've broken through the east wing staircases."

"Alright people, you know the drill. Dead man switches and tripwires. Set them up as we start a fighting retreat to the third floor. Let's move move move!"

**-TED-**

"Harmony One to Valkyrie leader. We're approaching drop zone. Could you boys give us some cover fire?"

"Roger that Harmony One. Valkyrie flights two and three will give you cover."

"Copy that Valkyrie leader," the pilot of the lead pinnace responded as she and her squadron began to make their way towards the Reproduction Center. She flipped on her intercom to speak to the three hundred and twenty four rangers she was transporting. "Hello boys, we'll be at the drop in five minutes. Get your gear ready and your 'cats situated. We'll be coming in hot."

Her navigator scowled. "Louise prepare for some chop, looks like they managed to cobble together some anti-air turrets."

"It just couldn't be easy now could it," she groused as she adjusted her flight pattern to give herself and her squad enough room to maneuver. "We're going in!"

The six pinnaces and their fighter escorts flew towards the beleaguered facility. Turian anti-aircraft guns and missiles fired, their gunships took to the air and moved to intercept the large craft. Valkyrie flights two and three engaged the gunships, missiles and darts flying as they danced and weaved around each other. The gunship's shields gave them an advantage in defense, but the sting-ships countered that with their higher agility.

Harmony Six took damage to her bridge. The Pinnace began to list as her co-pilot attempted to get her under control. The craft ended up crashing, though luckily the co-pilots attempts managed to save the lives of the troops but the same could not be said for the four people who manned the pinnace.

"I'm in the pipe, five by five. Get the troops ready to drop!" Louise shouted as her pinnace flew into the plaza, laser turrets firing and destroying the nearby AA guns before she cut her gravitic wedge and made to land.

**-TED-**

Corporal Zawastowski stood at the front of his troops as the passenger bay doors opened. He charged into the fray, gravitic riot shield covering him as his 'cat partner Jumper leapt from his docking bay on his left shoulder to gouge out the eyes of a Turian. "Go go go!" he shouted to his troops as they sprinted their way towards the facility. The pinnace behind them roared to life as it lifted off, drawing some fire before the gravitic wedge could activate. It was soon replaced with the next load of a hundred and sixty two human rangers and their 'cat partners.

His forces took losses. Private Annabelle Lee's 'cat partner Sandrock took a shotgun blow to the chest. In a roar of primal fury Annabelle charge the Turian lines, no longer thinking for herself. The death of a 'cat partner usually rendered a person catatonic. Not so with Rangers, instead the Ranger became an unthinking berserker with only one thought on their mind. The death of the person who killed their partner.

Annabelle's body charged into the Turian position, mindlessly she began tearing apart the opposition, grabbing them in her suit's formidable grip and rending them asunder. She no longer thought to use her plasma rifle, and only thought enough to use her shield as a weapon. The Turians focused their fire on her, peppering her armor before a tech fired a cryoblast to freeze her in place before several others followed up with incinerates, cooking the raving body of Annabelle alive in her suit.

With her raving screams cut off and the building fury of the 'cats in the back of his mind, Zawastowski ordered his troops into the building. They made quick work of the Turians within, what with them not expecting hundreds of armored humans to come bulldozing through their positions. Still Zawastowski could not help but notice the number of Turian bodies strewn about, probably killed by the defenders as they were pushed farther and farther up.

The 'cats started to sneak into the ventilation shafts, to better move throughout the building and ambush enemy positions. It was a risky maneuver, but Jumper was a decent tactician. He wouldn't allow his people to risk themselves unnecessarily. Though he doubted there'd be survivors of those ambushes. Well any that would be alive with their eyes intact. 'Cats seemed to really like going for the eyes.

**-TED-**

"Take out the biotic!" Balin'Reager shouted as his forces focused their fire on a turian with biotic barriers. The biotics were the reason why they were being overrun. The humans didn't have anything that could counter it, and well there were barely any Quarian biotics, and none of them were part of the Admirals' security detail. The concentrated fire managed to kill the biotic, but not before the Turian had fired a singularity that had several Torchese defenders floating helplessly and at the complete mercy of the Turian forces.

"Bloody bastards," Zaeed grumbled as he threw an improvised grenade into a cluster of Turians. The explosion was lower yield and failed to kill any of them, but the depleted barriers allowed Jessie to get her blood thirsty darts into them.

The fighting seemed to still for a second when Turian screams started behind the Turian positions. The frontline fighters turned back for a moment when a large mech burst through their ranks, in one hand it was wielding a forceblade, and in the other a gravitic shield. It blocked their tech and biotic attacks with its shield as it cut down the soldiers with its energy blade.

The mech whirled around like a hurricane, bisecting any Turian that got into its way. From the vents above the Turians 'Cat horror suits started to drop down into the middle of their defensive positions, grabbing Turians and slicing them apart with their forceclaws. In the enclosed and cramped hallways, melee proved the victor as the fighters clashed.

"Tch, about god damn time." Zaeed said as he looked at the carnage. Blue blood flying everywhere as the Rangers slaughtered the Turian forces.

One of the mechs, splattered in the blue blood of the Turians, walked over once the fighting died down. "Zaeed Massani?" the machine asked as one of the 'Cat suits jumped up onto its shoulder and docked with the suit.

"That be me. What took you so bloody long?" Zaeed said as he glared at the mech.

"We came across some resistance, nothing major. Is the Queen safe?" The mech said, its face plate lifting to show Corporal Jaiden Zawastowski.

"Course she is. Who do you bloody think I am?" he said as he gestured for the soldier to follow him.

"One of the best fighters Lara's Own has ever seen." The man admitted as he followed him. He noticed that hope seemed to blossom on the battle weary fighters as he passed. Though none of them set about cheering just yet. They weren't out of the fire after all.

"So what's the situation out there?"

"The Sixth managed to stall Turian reinforcements and with the help of the Sixth AAB managed to push the Turians out of the shopping district. The Second ARD wiped out Turian forces in the parks and are making their way here to help reinforce this position. Both Valkyrie and Amazon Flights have taken heavy losses but are quickly establishing aerial supremacy with the help of Iron Valley Flight. We have five Pinnaces circling the building ready to evacuate everyone here."

"And what'll happen after the Queen is evacuated?"

"Simple. We'll coordinate for a direct assault on the Turian position in the Industrial district. We're retaking Faxian."

"Good. I've got about a hundred and fifty volunteers that want to see that happen. They fought so fucking hard already, I doubt many will want to bug out before the big show happens." He doubted he'd leave as well, after all Alexis was more than capable of protecting the Queen while she was on a Pinnace heading for the Duke's palace.

"We'll welcome them."

"Not bad for Queen Berry's Militia's first sortie." Zaeed said with a grin.

**-TED-**

**Armored Suits-Battle Configuration:** Armored Suits worn by the Marines and Army, the Battle Configuration is the most power draining format of the Armored Suits. Its power source allows it sixteen hours of continuous combat. In Battle Configuration the Armored Suits are equipped with a plasma rifle, gravitic riot shield, and a forceblade sword for melee combat. The suit is capable of maintaining a charging speed of 45 kilometers an hour and are able to jump as high as twenty meters. The suit can maintain active camouflage for ten minute periods.

**Armored Suits-Reconnaissance Configuration:** Armored Suits worn by the Marines and Army, Reconnaissance Configuration is the least power draining format of the Armored Suits. Its power source allows fourty-eight hours of continuous use. Reconnaissance Configuration comes equipped with wrist mounted pulser cannons and a vibroknife for close melee combat. The suit is capable of maintaining a charging speed of 60 kilometers an hour and are able to jump as high as thirty meters. The suit can maintain active camouflage for forty-five minutes.

**Gravitic Riot Shield:** Due to the high power drain, Gravitic Riot Shields can only be utilized by Battle Configured Armored Suits. The Gravitic Riot shield is actually a mobile handheld gravity-sidewall that Armored suits can wield in battle. Capable of withstanding everything but directed energy weapons, Gravitic Riot Shields are the primary defense of Humanity's Armored ground forces.

**Queen Berry's Militia:** A mismatched group of concerned civilians and police forces, Queen Berry's militia took heavy losses during the fight for Faxian in defense of the Queen. After being reinforced by Lara's Own, the Sixth, and the Rangers, Queen Berry's Militia proved vital in the retaking of Faxian.

**-TED-**

**Sorry for the long delay. Just lost the ability to write for a fairly long time. But things have calmed down a bit and I got my desire to write back. Hope you guys enjoyed this chapter.**


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